In January 1994, Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music, a first-time radio series collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and National Public Radio, began airing on hundreds of NPR affiliate stations throughout America. An ambitious and influential series of 26 hour-long documentary programs, Wade explored 200 years of black sacred music, including spirituals, ring shouts, lined hymns, jazz, and gospel. The series also featured the insights of music creators, performers, listeners, and historians who could place African American sacred music traditions within the social, political, and cultural context of their times. Wade eventually won a Peabody Award and other awards of distinction. Conceived and hosted by Smithsonian Institution curator, artist, and MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellow Bernice Johnson Reagon, Wade required an intensive, five-year-long fundraising, research, and production journey of commitment. As the series’ associate producer, this article’s author worked with a host of dedicated radio producers, researchers, engineers, scholars, and music collectors who helped to make Wade a reality. Therefore, this article describes the series’ production journey from the vantage point of an insider, and it serves as a personal reflection on the making of a series that would set the standard for future long-form, NPR-based music documentary productions.
Wade in the Water: The Making of a Groundbreaking Radio Documentary Series
Sonja D. Williams (“Wade in the Water: The Making of a Groundbreaking Radio Documentary Series”) is a professor in the Howard University Department of Media, Journalism and Film in Washington, DC. She has worked as a broadcast journalist and media trainer in the Caribbean, Africa, and throughout the United States, receiving numerous awards—including three consecutive George Foster Peabody Awards for Significant and Meritorious Achievement—for writing and producing program segments for groundbreaking documentary series distributed by National Public Radio, Public Radio International, and the Smithsonian Institution. Williams was born and raised in New York City and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Sonja D. Williams; Wade in the Water: The Making of a Groundbreaking Radio Documentary Series. Resonance 7 May 2020; 1 (1): 15–24. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2020.1.1.15
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