The Memorial Candle Program has been designed to help offset the costs associated with the hosting this Tribute Website in perpetuity. Through the lighting of a memorial candle, your thoughtful gesture will be recorded in the Book of Memories and the proceeds will go directly towards helping ensure that the family and friends of Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d can continue to memorialize, re-visit, interact with each other and enhance this tribute for future generations.

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Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d Bishop Waddell Shields, Ph.d
In Memory of
Bishop Waddell P. "Del"
Shields, Ph.d
2015
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The lighting of a Memorial Candle not only provides a gesture of sympathy and support to the immediate family during their time of need but also provides the gift of extending the Book of Memories for future generations.

Night Call

Del Shields was the first African American to host a network radio program -- Night Call. It was broadcast immediately following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr and allowed radio listeners from across the country to interact with leaders of the civil rights and protest movements. It was the first national call-in program and required the invention of equipment that could interface studio microphnones with a guest telephone line and and caller lines. When the New York Bell technician came to hook up the equipment to the Bell system, he said, "I can't do it. I have to check with headquarters." I soon, as executive producer, received a call from Ma Bell saying that they couldn't hook us up -- "The number of calls it might generate could bring down the system."

Two memkbers of congress were on our national advisory committee. Ben Logan, producer, consulted with them. A couple of days later, I got another telephone call. "We don't know what's going on, but Washington says to put you guys on the air. What we're going to do is put you on the Wall Street exchange. It has no traffic at night." And so Night Call was launched from the studios of WRVR, the Riverside Church radio station, and aired each week day night for 19 months -- 119 stations providing public service air time. The fear of Bell executives was well founded. As many as 40,000 attempts were made to reach the program when well-known figures appeared.

By bringing people from all walks of life all over the country into dialogue, some think Night Call helped avert more violence and death. Del Shields made a huge difference. It was a privilege to work with him.

 

Posted by nelson price
Wednesday October 7, 2015 at 8:26 am
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