WRAP-AM (Norfolk)

WRAP-AM 850 was a black-oriented radio station in Norfolk, Virginia, that served the larger Tidewater area from 1952 to 1989.

History

WRAP premiered in September 1952, joining a select few other stations across the country that aimed to reach black audiences. Other stations included the first black-oriented station, WDIA in Memphis (founded 1948); WVON in Chicago; and WERD in Atlanta, the first-ever African American owned station. “Negro-oriented” radio stations, which later became known as black-oriented stations, featured mostly black deejays and targeted black audiences with recordings by black artists and advertising aimed at black consumers.^[1]

As early as 1953, a newspaper article described WRAP as “the only station in the Tidewater area of Virginia which beams its programs exclusively to a Negro audience.” ^[2] Still, like most black-oriented stations WRAP was white-owned.^[3] WRAP was a subsidiary of Rollins Broadcasting, owned by O. Wayne Rollins and local businessman John W. Rollins. An early station slogan that appeared in newspaper advertisements declared that the station played the “Music That Belongs to America.”^[4]

In December 1978, five African American WRAP deejays asked the station’s white management for raises and were summarily fired. One of the deejays, Randy Williams, managed to issue an on-air “statement of solidarity” in protest of the firings before he was forced to leave the station. The next month, “The WRAP Fired Five” organized a public rally to protest WRAP. They called for African Americans in the area to boycott the station, citing both their unfair firing and the station’s deeper insensitivity to the black community’s needs.^[5]

Philadelphia black businessman Ragan Henry bought the station in the late 1980s.^[6] In 1989, the station changed its callsign to WBSK and sold its call letters to a North Carolina broadcaster. Shortly thereafter, management at WBSK fired fifteen employees – many of them longtime WRAP veterans – without any warning.^[7] The WBSK management justified their actions by arguing that the staffers had not yet completed a 90-day probationary period they had started at the new station and were thus subject to termination without notice.^[7]

Format

WRAP played a mix of programming including music, religious shows, football games, and programming for homemakers. It was best known for playing Rhythm & blues and Rock & roll in the 1950s and for its soul music offerings in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980s, HJ Ellison became one of the first deejays on commercial radio to host a show devoted to rap and hip hop.

Deejays

WRAP’s first three full-time black disc jockeys were Robert L. “Bob” King, Milt Nixon, and Oliver Allen.^[8]

WRAP’s most popular deejay was Jack “Big Daddy” Holmes. Born in 1915 in Merchantsville, New Jersey, outside Philadelphia, Holmes began his radio career at WLOW in Portsmouth in September 1949. Within a few years, Holmes had developed a devoted following in the area. In the late 1950s, Holmes joined the WRAP staff and became their most prominent deejay.^[9]

Other popular deejays at WRAP over the years were Jay Dee Jackson, Frankie “Soul Ranger” Stewart, Maurice Ward, HJ Ellison, William “Bill” Boykins, Chester Benton, Alvin Reaves, Calvin "Shakespeare" Perkins and Calvin Cooke, Leola Dyson. One of the first black female radio deejays in the country, Dyson directed public relations for WRAP and performed on the air for more than twenty years.^[10]

Reunion

WRAP staffers reunited for a reunion in 2003, organized by Chester Benton and Bill Boykins.^[11]

References