The HBCU Radio Preservation Project preserves and honors the legacy of Black college radio. We’re safeguarding at-risk historical media and gathering oral histories to explore how HBCU radio stations serve their campuses and communities.
In recognition of Black History Month, Legacy Listening: HBCU Radio Memories features excerpts from the project’s growing collection of oral history interviews, focusing on WCSU at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.
This week we meet Charles Fox, General Manager of WCSU, who was interviewed by the HBCU Radio Preservation Project’s 2025 Fellow Olivia Green in August of 2025.
Interview Highlights:
Central State University's role in the local community
"This is the first place I've been in a long time where people have been in one place almost all their lives, or people have come here to go to school and are still here 20 years later. I've realized the value and to appreciate what Central State University means to people in the community who have been here all their lives."
Jazz is a symbol of democracy, and so that's what we should remember and hold onto.
Jazz and democracy
"Adam Clayton Powell realized that whites were coming into clubs in Harlem to hear jazz. He saw the cross-cultural relevance of it, and he pitched an idea to President Eisenhower and the State Department that jazz could be a way of promoting democracy.
So Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, were sent around the world. And so I started in, in this current climate, I saw that jazz is a symbol of democracy, and so that's what we should remember and hold onto. I can't imagine the joy that people must have felt hearing intellectual thought and sounds of entertainment that reflected their experience."
Connecting with audiences beyond CSU
"I got a message from a woman. She says, 'Hi, I'm just a 60-year-old white woman out here living on a farm, but I just wanna tell you, I love your music.' And we got a postcard from a woman from Yellow Springs saying, thank you for saving my sanity during COVID.
We got a call from people in Colorado. Hey, what happened? You guys went off the air for a minute. We are missing you. We love your show. It's saying that we're doing something right and they are connected to it."
Listen to our full interview with Charles Fox and other oral histories from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project on YouTube in collaboration with our partners at the Margaret Walker Center.
