UCC Media Justice was sad to learn that Ralph Jennings, a key aide to Everett Parker, passed away earlier this month at the age of 86.
Ralph Jennings started his career in radio, joined Everett Parker in his work, and then went on to be the core creative vision in the famed WFUV noncommercial radio station at Fordham University. As WFUV explained it:
In the 1960s, Jennings worked at WRVR, then a station at Riverside Church, producing radio features and documentaries, including covering the civil rights movement. Later, he served as deputy director under Everett C. Parker of the Office of Communication at the United Church of Christ, where he worked on the successful landmark case to challenge and remove the license of a notoriously biased television station, WLBT, in Jackson, Mississippi. He continued to work with the UCC and other nonprofits to organize and train community groups all across the country to fight discriminatory hiring and programming practices among radio and television broadcasters. Ralph was also instrumental in starting Mississippi’s first public radio station, WMPR-FM (90.1).
From 1968-1980, Jennings was deputy director in the Office of Communications, United Church of Christ. He worked with director Everett C. Parker to challenge the licenses of radio and television stations practicing racial and gender bias in hiring and programming. Jennings authored publications, such as The Responsibilities of the Broadcaster and How to Protect Your Rights in Television and Radio, written in the early 1970s. He testified before Congress.
During his time at the UCC, Jennings was known for his role in compiling race and gender employment data at a time when the Federal Communications Commission was not doing so. UCC Media Justice, then called UCC Office of Communication, Inc., issued reports authored by Jennings and called attention to broadcasters that fell short in diversity hiring. Records of a few of these original reports can still be found online (see below). This year, UCC Media Justice continued that legacy by winning a fight to re-establish the FCC’s broadcaster workforce diversity reporting after a 20-year lapse.
Jennings went on to reimagine WFUV, the public radio station based at Fordham, which is still admired nationwide for its innovative content. Today, WFUV has 30 full-time professionals who run the station alongside about 70 students. It provides airplay to new acts, as the New York Times explained, giving “the folk singer Brandi Carlile her first airtime” and championing “singer Norah Jones and the folk band Mumford and Sons before they made it big.” Jennings was known for his willingness to get things done, “he discovered the force of broadcasting could bend the steel of the world into a better, fairer place — for anyone willing to crawl under a desk, stretch a roll of electrician’s tape or hang a length of cable.”
Rev. Donna Schaper, a UCC Media Justice’s board member, said, “I knew Ralph for a couple of decades when I closely followed the work of Everett Parker in New York. Ralph was always the adult in the room, both psychologically and intellectually. As one of his many mentees, know this: Ralph, we will keep up the fight and the faith! You showed us the way. You would say there is not one way. We would agree,” she said, “We shall therefore continue the fight and the faith in many forms!”
UCC Media Justice celebrates Ralph Jennings’s life and will continue the work to create media structures that reflect the full diversity of our country and are accountable to the communities they serve.