This Black History Month we’re sharing stories about community, memory, and why radio preservation matters in Legacy Listening: HBCU Radio Memories, our series featuring excerpts from oral histories collected by the HBCU Radio Preservation Project.
Today we meet Stephon Lane, broadcast technician at WCSU, who shared his radio memories with the HBCU Radio Preservation Project’s summer intern Kayla Foster in May of 2025.
Interview Highlights:
The importance of music
"Always been in music and to be truthful, that saved my life. Because I wouldn’t have graduated without music. Once I started playing drums, it was just a, a calling, I would say.
And I loved practicing, you know, even during junior high, high school and all that. Then started meeting more cats and started getting in more bands, playing in clubs when I was young. Central State sent me a scholarship for music, and that was back in 79, and I've been here ever since."
HBCU radio as a teaching tool
"You know, we had more students being on the radio and it's a 24-hour station, so you had to have somebody pretty much all the time. If you say you going to be there, you had to be there because if you say you gonna do a show at five and don't get there, back in the day, it wouldn't be any music or anything.
[Radio] gives you a lot of discipline, and I think a lot of kids need that. I know I did 'cause I was hardheaded thinking I can rule the world. So, you know, and it gets them ready for when you get a job. That's what keep me here at the radio station, you see all the people come back and they’re announcers and got their own stations. You know, that kind stuff make you feel good, because they could have went other ways, too."
Listen to our full interview with Stephon Lane and other oral histories from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project on YouTube in collaboration with our partners at the Margaret Walker Center.
