WDIA

[5] Nat D. Williams, a syndicated columnist and high-school teacher, started Tan Town Jubilee on October 25, 1948.

[8] Its powerful signal reached the Mississippi Delta’s dense African-American population and was heard from the Missouri Bootheel to the Gulf Coast.

[4][9] Future WJLB strong jock, Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg became known as "Princess Premium Stuff".

Ernest Brazzell gave crop advice, and Robert Thomas became a DJ named “Honeyboy” after he won a citywide amateur competition.

Among other notable personalities were Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert, Theo "Bless My Bones" Wade, and Ford Nelson, who continued as of 2013 as an active gospel DJ on WDIA.

He had a daily 15-minute show, promoting first a patent medicine called Pep-Ti-Kon, and later Lucky Strike cigarettes, the first major advertiser for the station.

Scruggs played a major role in organizing the foundation and raising money to preserve the Lorraine Motel and found the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

[citation needed] In the 1970s and 1980s, the owners of WDIA also owned KDIA, a similarly formatted station in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 2020 the Beale Street Historic District and the WDIA radio station were added from Memphis to the United States Civil Rights Trail.