Award Recipients

Ralph Blumberg 1965 Paul White Award Recipient

A VICTIM OF HATE

WBOX owner Ralph Blumberg took on the Ku Klux Klan in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in 1965. His radio station's news stories and editorials were meet by gunfire and a boycott of his advertisers.

By Bob Priddy, for the September 1995 Communicator

The list of winners of RTNDA's highest honor, the Paul White Award, includes many names familiar to later generations of electronic journalists. A few names ring no bells. The name of our 1965 winner, Ralph Blumberg, is probably one of them. But his being honored at RTNDA's convention in St. Petersburg was an event of great emotional impact.

In those days, the Paul White Award recognized significant contributions to broadcast journalism in the previous year. It was not, as it later became, an honor for a distinguished career.

"Ralph Blumberg is the president, general manager, sales manager, control room engineer, chief announcer and does anything else that needs doing at WBOX, Bogalusa, Louisiana," said RTNDA past-president Dick Cheverton as he introduced Blumberg. "Mr. Blumberg did not come by these titles easily. "

Comparing Blumberg to the late Paul White and the famous CBS news director's "legacy of forceful dedication to integrity and a firm belief that the fight against intolerance and stupidity is never over," Cheverton added, "The harvest Blumberg reaped was 13 months of hatred, economic sanctions and violence against himself, his family and his radio station."

In May 1964, Blumberg and a few other Bogalusa citizens tried to head off trouble between blacks and white groups that appeared to be on a collision course. In October, plans were made to bring in a speaker to explain the impact of Congress's new Civil Rights legislation. But when word got out that black community leaders were going to be at the meeting, bomb threats and threatening telephone calls kept owners of places where the meeting could be held from providing space for it. The meeting had to be canceled.

In January of 1965, Blumberg editorialized, saying no matter how anyone felt about the Civil Rights laws, they must be obeyed if order were to be maintained. The editorial led to days and nights of threatening telephone calls to the station. The Ku Klux Klan hinted that Mrs. Blumberg and the children might be harmed unless her husband apologized. He sent his family back to St. Louis and refused to apologize.

The intimidation campaign increased. Advertisers were warned to stop running commercials on the station. By March, he only had six sponsors left. He appealed for support from community leaders. They refused.

But Blumberg decided to stay on the air. As Cheverton put it: "If the opposition could close one station without a fight, they could close any radio or television station or newspaper in any small town--and thus control the town. And, if he stayed and fought he hoped the community would also fight and would see the point of the issue."

Blumberg began an editorial campaign aimed at the KKK, asserting the Klan had taken away freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to free enterprise. The night of the first editorial in that series, somebody fired six rifle shots into his transmitters.

On June 1, the landlord told Blumberg he would have to move so that the owner could make the building into a bar. Blumberg moved a trailer next to his transmitter.

Blumberg was going broke. "His station income is $400 a month. He operates the station alone," said Cheverton. "Blumberg is getting out--selling at a loss--because there is no other alternative...Bogalusa could be your town or mine--and what has happened to Blumberg could happen to you and me."

At RTNDA's convention Blumberg said he had been asked many times why he wanted to tangle with the Klan. "There are times when a man does what he sincerely feels he must do.

"I personally believe a radio or TV station is more than just a business. When you are loaned a frequency by the Federal Comunication Commission, you automatically become deeply obligated, not only to yourself and your family, but also to your community," Blumberg said in accepting the award. "We felt our responsibility at this particularly time was to expose the Ku Klux Klan. When you become a target of the Klan, you soon learn that if there ever was a devil on the face of the earth, it lives, it breathes, it functions in the cloaked evil of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. And you cannot compromise with the devil."

"You learn a few facts of life when you take an unpopular stand, especially in a small community," Blumberg said, "We sincerely believe that there are some things today we cannot lose....These are our basic freedoms. We cannot rationalize our position when the time comes to stand and fight. There is no middle ground....There is no compromise when it comes to our freedoms....We either have them or we don't."

Blumberg felt he and his wife has failed to make the people of Bogalusa understand what they were trying to say. He hoped other broadcasters would find answers in looking at what had happened to them: "We do know that no broadcaster must ever let anyone take away his freedom of speech, and we feel it is incumbent upon every broadcaster to let all men everywhere know that we insist on performing our duties with integrity and courage."

Ralph Blumberg joined WCBS-TV after selling his station for a $10,000 loss. In 1979, he became the supervisor of investigations in the FCC's complaints and investigations branch. Blumberg worked for the FCC for more than 20 years before retiring and returning to Missouri. He and his wife live in the St.Louis suburb of Chesterfield, where he is writing a book on his stand for freedom of speech, of press, and of mankind in Bogalusa 30 years ago.