WBKY/WUKY

Today, March 19, 2018, WUKY marks a new era of broadcasting in its new off-campus facility.

University of Kentucky radio broadcasting began in April, 1929 when Dr. Frank L. McVey announced into a radio microphone in Lexington: "The University is on the air...."  For the broadcast of educational programs from studios on the Lexington campus, WHAS Radio in Louisville (Kentucky's first radio station) agreed to install all necessary equipment and direct telephone lines; the university and the station would share equally the transmission charges.

This agreement began a partnership which attracted national attention.  President McVey's, somewhat apprehensive about the whole idea but willing to take a change with it, expressed his hopes for the medium during the maiden broadcast:

"Life is faster with greater possibilities and subject to disasters as always.  This is the sort of universe we live in.  Now comes the radio, bringing to every part of the world the sound of the human voice from every country of the globe.  No such possibilities of good and no such opportunity for mere bunk, have been offered to the public as through this amazing invention.  The University of Kentucky is not interested in adding to the trivial, so two important forces for constructive effort in our state have agreed to cooperate in giving to the radio audience, what is hoped will be interesting, stimulating and helpful."

From the WHAS studio in Louisville, owner Robert Worth Bingham, who also owned the Louisville Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, reiterated WHAS's noble intentions of reaching the isolated and uneducated -- "it is for those whose need is greatest who fill my mind as I think of what this work of our may mean to them."

The University of Kentucky programs were aired Monday through Friday at noon, initially for fifteen minutes and expanded by 1931 to forty-five.  While primarily offering agricultural information, lectures on a variety of topics, as well as musical presentations, were also offered.  From the beginning, the university appreciated its responsibility, and under the guidance of Elmer G. "Bromo" Sulzer, who began his work at UK in public relations, energetically and successfully lobbied for the expansion of its radio commitment.

For additional information see "WHAS Radio and the Development of Broadcasting in Kentucky, 1922-1942"
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.bing.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=libraries_facpub

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE....

As I approach my fifty year high school reunion, I am startled, like so many generations before, how fifty years could pass so quickly.  Spending one's career on a college campus offers the illusion of eternal youth.

But today's college students consider 1968 ancient history.  I remind myself that when I was in college a person celebrating their fiftieth high school reunion would have graduated from high school between 1919 and 1922.  I for sure thought those people were old!

But it is also strange how many topics have remained so consistent over five decades.  While everything around us seems to be changing rapidly in this still relatively new century, in other important ways time moves slowly or seemingly in circles.

As examples I share Kentucky Kernel headlines from fifty year ago, March 11, 1968:

 

This week we celebrated International Women's Day while the Kentucky General Assembly debated medical marijuana and additional restrictions on a woman's right to choose.   Students focused on spring break and the Big Blue Nation obsessed over a player's injury heading into post-season tournament play. The questions about capital punishment remain unresolved.

The past fifty years have witnessed important changes regarding civil rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, as well as other much needed changes within our society.  Medical advances have been astounding and technology has dramatically altered the way we live. 

But I wonder if at my high school reunion we will still debate Beatles or Stones, GTO or SS396, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In or The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, In Cold Blood or The Graduate, or might we simply realize that we have grown older in what seems like an instant and embrace our memories and the positive changes that have occurred while recommitting to the changes still needed with inquisitive and open minds?

UK'S FIRST WOMAN MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Laura Clay

In 1894 the Kentucky Equal Rights Association petitioned the governor to appoint a woman to the UK Board.  The Association contended that UK’s women students still did not receive equal opportunity.  Two years later the Kentucky General Assembly debated proposed legislation allowing women to serve on the UK Board.  

UK President James K. Patterson, who took credit for the admission of women to the college 14 years earlier, unabashedly appeared before the legislature vigorously opposing the change.  He argued that the education of ninety-nine percent of women did not prepare them to serve on the board.  

Laura Clay, a leading advocate of women's rights who should have been UK's first woman board member, immediately saw the contradiction in Patterson's position.  She noted that most Kentucky women received their college educations at UK so if they were not qualified to serve on the board it must be because their college educations had been inferior!  

Some legislators supported the petition going so far as to stress that since women comprised thirty-five percent of the student body the board should have similar representation.  Nevertheless, a majority of legislators disagreed and the proposed legislation failed.

A woman did not serve on the UK Board of Trustees until 1939 when Governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler appointed Georgia Monroe Blazer.  Upon her appointment Blazer commented that "people feel there is a real place on the board for a woman."  At her first UK Board meeting "Mrs. Blazer was cordially welcomed and she graciously assumed her duties."

UK Board 1958

Ironically, Blazer, an Illinois native had attended the University of Chicago rather than UK.  A resident of Ashland, Kentucky, her husband Paul G. Blazer, ran the Ashland Oil and Refining Company.  Georgia Blazer was active in educational and cultural endeavors statewide.

Blazer served on the UK Board until 1961, many of those years as Secretary of the Board.  Georgia and Paul Blazer endowed the Blazer Lecture at UK in 1947 in memory of their son Stuart.  In 1962 UK named a new student residence Georgia M. Blazer Hall.  UK opened a new Georgia M. Blazer Residence Hall in 2014 as the original building is scheduled for demolition.

THE LONG AND DIFFICULT ROAD TO UK DESEGREGATION

Kentucky's Day Law, "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School" became law in 1904.  By the 1930's African-Americans began to increase pressure on Kentucky public universities to desegregate.  

The debate involved UK administrators, governors, and citizens.  The first response to the demand for access and equal treatment usually cited the Day Law arguing that it could not be changed.  The second response was usually "southern culture" was not ready for such a change.

White leaders continued to offer inadequate solutions such as paying the tuition for Kentucky's African-Americans to attend out-of-state universities.  They also called for the establishment of regional institutions in the south for African-Americans that could offer programs like engineering and law that were not offered at Kentucky's historically black Kentucky State University.

Governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler would later take credit for the desegregation of Major League Baseball, but in his first term as Governor he failed to provide leadership on the issue when desperately needed for his state.  Likewise, Dean of UK Law Alvin Evans also failed to lead and even displayed a lack of commitment to equality under the law while demonstrating incredible insensitivity to his fellow Kentucky citizens.

Lyman Johnson won a legal battle to enroll at UK as a history graduate student in 1949.  The undergraduate program at UK desegregated in 1954 following the Brown decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fortunately, we have overcome many of these earlier obstacles.  But as Black History Month has come to a close, let's remember that challenges remain and that it is the responsibility of each generation to eradicate discrimination and inequality in all aspects of American life.

Kentucky Kernel, March 14, 1939

UK FOUNDERS DAY COMMEMORATING 153 YEARS

UK's second President Henry Stites Barker celebrating Founders Day, 1917

SOCRATES BITES COED

Perhaps not as big a story as "Man Bites Dog" but "Socrates Bites Coed" made the front page of the Kentucky Kernel 50 years ago this month.  Thankfully, student Mary Menge was not injured badly by the bite administered by UK President John Oswald's dog Socrates.  There is absolutely no evidence that the dog bite at Maxwell Place hastened President Oswald's departure from the University.  Neverthless, he resigned only two months later in April 1968.

BLACK STUDENT UNION, 1968

President John Oswald described the UK campus in 1968 as a state of ferment.  Free speech, anti-war protests, the women's movement, and student rights issues consumed the campus.  But the push by African-American students for a range of issues needing attention and change was at the forefront of the ferment because of its historical antecedents and its impact on the university's future.

UK President John Oswald and BSU President Theodore Berry

The UK Black Student Union, founded in January 1968 and led by its first president, Theodore Berry, became the focus of the movement on campus.  On February 15 the BSU met with President John Oswald to state their goals.  The BSU called for more black students at UK, as well as more black professors, administrators, and staff.  Noting the difficulty of recruiting black professors because of UK's "white image," the BSU argued that black faculty needed to be "actively recruited by UK in order to get them to come here."  President Oswald agreed emphasizing that "UK should make a greater effort to recruit Negro teachers on a personal basis."

The BSU also demanded an end to off-campus housing discrimination.  Even though the university maintained a list of housing that did not discriminate by race, incidents of discrimination remained.

A course in African-American history became central to BSU's call for action.  Not only did the UK History Department not offer such a course, Professor Carl Cone, History Department Chair, attended the February meeting to say that he would "not recommend that the course be included in its curriculum for the next year."

Cone argued that "the course was too specialized for general interest."  This was a History Department that among its regular curriculum taught two courses on Japanese history; one to 1600 and another from 1600 to the present that likely did not have "general interest!"  He did concede that an existing course in American history "would be broadened to include more about the American Negro."

Cone's comments received a "dubious reaction" from the audience.  The BSU presented Cone a petition signed by 900 UK students stating their interest in a black history course.  In 1968 only 150 African-American students attended UK.

In its reporting on the meeting between President Oswald and the BSU the Kernel identified the organization as a "militant Negro group."  Responding to the label Theodore Berry pushed back saying, "If militant means speaking up for what is rightfully ours without asking, then we are militant, but not in a sense of violence."

But events during 1968 moved at a frantic pace. Assassinations took the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy creating unrest and uncertainty across the nation.  President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Locally, President Oswald left UK in April precipitated by disagreements with Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn and other politicians over free speech and other university policies.  Jim Embry replaced Theodore Berry as presidents of the Black Student Union.

In October 1968 the once recalcitrant Professor Cone announced that a new course in Negro history would be available for the spring 1969 semester.  The course, to be taught by white professor Steven Channing, "will be offered at least once every year and will be open to about 100 students."

Jim Embry, 1968

Cone noted that his change of heart resulted from a change nationally in the history profession in the previous eight to nine months that now considered a black history course a relevant part of the curriculum.

Noting the BSU's long advocacy for such a course, BSU President Jim Embry reacted by noting that, "Our asking for the black history course last spring is now showing its effects.  It should have been done in the first place.  My elation is not that great, but I am glad it's going to be started."

The University of Kentucky owes a debt to Theodore Berry, Jim Embry and many others who forced the university to be more progressive in regard to race and diversity.  Over the past five decades much progress has been achieved but much more remains to be done.  Black History Month is a time to reflect and reaffirm UK's commitment to diversity but the effort must continue throughout the year.