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From 1961 to 1976 WRVR-FM broadcast a progressive slate of social justice and jazz programming from the Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Beginning in 2018 those archives are being digitized and transcribed by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, and on June 17 they’re asking volunteers to help correct those transcriptions in a “Transcript-A-Thon” event.
We welcome guests Vincent Kelley, Archivist at The Riverside Church Archives, and Ryn Marchese, Engagement and Use Manager for the American Archives of Public Broadcasting, to dig into the history of WRVR and its deep archive of truly historical audio. IN 1964 it was the first radio station to win a Peabody for its entire programming, which included coverage of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Among the famous figures who appeared on air are Pete Seeger, Malcolm X, Bob Dylan, Indira Gandhi, Aldous Huxley and Margaret Mead, while Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his pivotal “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church over WRVR-FM on April 4, 1967.
Show Notes:
- The WRVR-FM (Riverside Radio) Collection at the American Archives of Public Broadcasting
- The Riverside Church in the City of New York
- Join the Transcript-a-thon on June 17 at 1:00pm EDT
- WRVR Fix-IT+ Transcript Editor
- Press release about us recovering the original recording of Beyond Vietnam
- From the archive:
- Podcast #250 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists
- Podcast #186 – African-American Preachers on Wax
