World vs. Bob Chisholm: Surviving Small Town Radio

In the 1950s and 1960s, small-town AM radio was the life force of many Southern communities, energized by the birth of rock 'n' roll and the arrival of the civil rights movement. Therein lies a wonderful untold-until now-story about unheralded heroes who sacrificed everything to be a part of that life-changing experience.<p>

When 28-year-old Bob Chisholm relocated his wife, Carol, and daughter, Candy, to Winona, Mississippi (pop. 4282) in 1958, where he had a job as the manager/news director/announcer of that town's first radio station, WONA, he had no idea what was in store for him. Small town life in the 1950s and 1960s brings to mind people leaving their houses unlocked while they were away on vacation and everybody saying "yes ma'am" and "yes, sir" to their elders. Nearly everybody had a nickname and it was depicted as idyllic, especially if you were not Black or poor. Because there was a general friendliness between the races in small towns, it was easy for white people to convince themselves that racial discrimination did not exist.<p>

As Bob Chisholm would quickly learn, the 1950s and 1960s in Mississippi had a dark side. It was as if the state was a cross between "The Wild Wild West" and "The Twilight Zone," two popular TV shows of that era.<p>

Winona was a microcosm of small-town Mississippi. White women could vote, but it was not advertised by the state that they could and that deception continued until 1984 when Mississippi ratified the 19^th Amendment that had guaranteed women the right to vote since 1920. Of course, Black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic women were blocked from voting as were Black men until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Women of any color were not allowed to apply for credit, obtain credit cards, or serve on juries. In other words, Mississippi was a deeply authoritarian state that often used violence to perpetuate the status quo.<p>

You would think that Bob, being a white man, would have an easy go of it. But because he went on the air each morning and broadcast the news that he had collected about conflict of interest deals involving city and county officials, illegal actions committed by town and county law enforcement officials, and the latest civil rights news, he was severely beaten and his life was threatened on a regular basis. It wasn't that he editorialized about the news, he simply reported the facts for which he had reliable sources. <p>

Winona was one of several "ground zero" communities in Mississippi for the Civil Rights movement. It was in Winona that Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer was brutally beaten on the orders of local law enforcement authorities. And it was through Winona that Martin Luther King marched with music icon Joan Baez on his arm after the march's organizer James Meredith was shot and wounded on the highway shortly after leaving Memphis.<p>

This fascinating biography chronicles the impact of local radio on small Southern towns in the 1950s and 1960s and the impact of these towns on local radio at a time when rock 'n' roll was spawning a social revolution in American culture. Just 122 miles up the road, Memphis was exploding with rock 'n' roll from Sun Records and rhythm and blues from Stax Records.<p>

Candy Chisholm Justice is a former reporter and columnist at the Memphis Press-Scimitar, who now is an award-winning journalism professor at The University of Memphis, where she is faculty advisor to the independent student newspaper, The Daily Helmsman. She is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.

A veteran of small-town radio, Bryan Cottingham is a retired Emmy Award winning television producer/director/writer, whose credits include production of national television specials, a series on HGTV, regional and network sports coverage, international Webcasts, and nationally distributed teaching and motivational videos. Bryan lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife Julie and teaches Communications at Nashville area colleges. He has eight children and 28 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.