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Popular Culture Review
there’s going to be no change in our position...As long as Hyman Childs owns
these three radio stations, there’s going to be a KKDA [AM]” (K. Dowe, personal
communication, August 24, 2000).
But Johnson fears that the community-oriented programming KKDA-AM
provides may disappear someday. “It’s a fading star.. .1 don’t think it’s going to be
passed on. When this particular generation fades out.. .1 don’t know, things come
full circle, but I don’t think in my lifetime I’ll see it again” (W. Johnson, personal
communication, Oct. 22, 1999).
Conclusion: Learning to Reinvent Conununity Service
Willis Johnson’s daily morning program on KKDA-AM is an example of a
com m ercial broadcasting station that fulfills the Federal Communications
Commission’s injunction to serve in the “public interest, convenience and necessity,”
a dictate that has become less and less meaningful in recent years. Johnson’s program
excels in providing the Black community of Dallas with access to the airwaves,
even while operating in an environment that requires less public service from radio
stations (Loomis, 1998; McGregor, 1998), and while some other communityoriented programs on KKDA-AM have been cancelled.
The calls to Willis Johnson’s program provide a unique and candid insight
into the hearts and minds of the African-American community of Dallas. The topic
of African-Americans as a community within multiethnic areas has been addressed
by Hutchinson, Rodriguez and Hagan (1996). And as Johnson observed, it is obvious
there is a desire for a sense of community, a sense of camaraderie that is in some
way satisfied for the listeners of his daily program on KKDA-AM. The frankness
with which callers discuss relations between African-Americans is remarkable,
and is not likely to be matched on any other station.
Some of the criticisms of Black radio that were made in the 1960s and 1970s
could still be made today of the programs on