QCT Charlotte Women's History and Heritage Toursm March 2025 Travel Article
It had been at least a decade since I bumped into Janine 👩🏾💼🎙️ at the Harris Teeter 🛒🏬 grocery store off Central Avenue 🏙️ in the area of the Queen City 👑🏙️ (Charlotte, NC) known today as Plaza Midwood 🌳🏡, located just east of Uptown/Downtown/Center City 🏢🌆. She stood out in the crowd because of her impeccable and tasteful style of dress 👗✨. We briefly spoke and exchanged pleasantries before continuing our way. I cannot say for certain, but I more than likely was either in between or finishing up a QCT Charlotte Daily City Toursm 🚍🏛️ and darted in to pick up one of the store's signature rotisserie chickens 🍗🔥—which are da bomb! 💣😋
Janine 🎤📻 was probably finishing up another shift on or behind the scenes of one of the local radio stations to which she has been employed for over three decades as a news and entertainment journalist 📰🎬, as well as one of the top producers in the country of the now-defunct nationally syndicated "The Tom Joyner Morning Show 🎧🎵". That store was torn down and they built a bigger one in the same spot 🏗️➡️🏢 akin to the shack in The Jerk movie 🎥😂 starring comedian Steve Martin 🤹♂️🎭.
Before that chance encounter, I would see Janine 🎤 in passing every year in February 📅❄️, while conducting or directing the QCT Charlotte Pilgrimage Toursm 🚍📖, outside of the ImaginOn 📚🎭 children's complex, along with these racks of prom dresses 👗👠 accompanied by young ladies scurrying about browsing through the selections. That event was part of the Greensboro, NC 📍, native's Girl Talk Foundation 💖👩🏾🤝👩🏼 that she founded in 2003 📅, and is mentioned in the book Charlotte From A Tour Guide's Perspective 📖🚌.
Fast forward to the end of 2020 📅, a most peculiar year due to COVID-19 🦠 (Coronavirus), and our paths crossed again via the LinkedIn social media platform 💻📲, which I had not used in years. Janine 🎤 was soliciting donations for her Girl Talk Foundation 💖👩🏾🤝👩🏽 in conjunction with a local annual non-profit fundraising campaign. My thoughts were immediately, "Hey, I need to interview her!" since she is still at it with her foundation that provides much-needed support and mentorship for young girls 11-16 years old 🎓💡.
It did not take long for Janine 📻 to respond positively, which we will both attribute to divine intervention. She wanted me to contact her after the new year, and I agreed, considering the holiday season is the least productive—unless you are in retail 🛍️—of the work year. The agreed delay also gave her time to close out her midday (10 AM - 3 PM) weekday radio show on V101.9 FM 📡🎶, which is heard by 100,000 listeners 🎧👂, and to update her podcast Yasssss, hunni! 🎤🔥; while I focused on creating more awareness for our sister publication CBP's Black Pages Worldwidetm 📚✊🏾 in time for Black History Month 2021 🖤📅.
I also had time to reflect on a few of the early local radio pioneers who paved the way for successful personalities like Janine 🎙️ to survive and thrive on and off the airwaves.
🎙️ Legendary Radio Pioneers:
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Hattie "Chatty Hattie [Hatty]" Leeper 📻👑:
She embarked on her radio career at the tender age of 14 years old 👧📡 in 1951 📅 when segregation was as overt as the nose on our faces. She prided herself on sounding white because that was a big plus back in those days among both races. That made her ice a tad bit colder! ❄️ She is the first Black/African-American ✊🏾 woman DJ/Radio Announcer 🎶🎤 in Charlotte 📍 and has published a book 📖📚 about her experiences. -
Wayne Brown 📡 (1957 - 2012) 🎙️:
Arrived in the Queen City 👑🏙️ in 1991 📅 and took over the helm at WPEG-FM 📻 ("Power 98") 🔥, which was then broadcasting from nearby Concord, NC 📍. He was instrumental in the takeover of WBAV-FM 🎵 ("V 101.9") 🎶. Both Urban stations 🎼 were owned by CBS Radio 🎙️ and today are owned by Beasley Media Group, Inc. 🏢 of Naples, Florida 🌴 and are among the area's strongest.
I recall meeting with Mr. Brown 🏢 at the old Concord 📍 location and again at their South Kings Drive 📍 office to discuss the station's support of an event that I founded called The Minority Economic Summit 💼📊, which at its peak attracted Black radio mogul 📻 Mr. Percy Ellis Sutton 🎤🏛️ (1920 - 2009), who also owned the Apollo Theater 🎭🎶 in New York 🗽 and was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen ✈️🛩️ who served during World War II 🎖️.
🎤 Interview with Janine Davis - "JD The Diva" 🎙️✨
Jay: Who or what was your inspiration for going into the radio business?
Janine 🎧: Honestly, I wanna say it was unintentional yet intentional. It worked out as divine intervention, but I wanted to be an actress. 🎭✨ In high school, I did a lot of theater, a lot of competitions statewide and regionally; I won all these contests for my acting ability, so I really wanted to get into acting.
So, when I was getting ready to go to college, I had known some friends who went into acting in professional theatre and they were sleeping in their cars 🚗💤—which was a requirement that, clearly, I was not willing to participate in. So, I went to my high school counselor—shout out to all the high school counselors out there! 🏫👏—she kind of set me on that path to getting into radio.
She asked me, "What do you like doing?" and I told her, "Theater! 🎭 I like acting, I like being in front of people and all that." So, she said, "Well, you may want to consider mass communications 🎤📡—that way, you get the best of both worlds."
I was like, "Nah," because back then, not a lot of people knew about mass communications. But she broke it down: "It's radio, TV, production, promotions, marketing, law—it's all that stuff." So anyway, I went to college and majored in mass communications 🎓📺 with a concentration in broadcast journalism 🎤📰 at A&T (North Carolina, Greensboro) - Aggie Pride! 🟡🔵.
They had a phenomenal mass communications program because they actually had a radio station 📻 that was very well respected. Even though it was a college radio station, it was still respected in the commercial radio space 🌎🎶.
Jay 🎤: Was it FM (Frequency Modulation 📻) or AM (Amplitude Modulation 📡)?
Janine 🎙️: It was FM, 90.1 📡 (still operating); it had a pretty decent signal too. At that time, I didn't know about signals and stuff like that. So, I got my start by working at the radio station, and what I loved about it was that it was really hands-on. I got to do what I thought I wanted to do because, even then, I wasn't sure I wanted to do radio. 🎧📻
My mind was not set—as with most mass-comm majors, we wanted to be on TV! 📺✨ I wanted to be on TV. But we had a TV production department that was just beginning, and it wasn’t really where it needed to be. The radio thing, however, was well-established. So, I went to the radio station and just said, "Hey" to the program director: "I really want to be on radio, blah, blah, blah." 🎤🙌
And she told me, "Read this," so I read something—some copy—and she said, "You'll never make it in radio, you sound like Minnie Mouse!" 🐭😂 [Jay and Janine cracking up! 🤣🤣]
I was offended and could have taken it to heart and gotten discouraged, but I said to myself, "No, I am going to show her. I can do this!" 💪🎙️ So, I actually went back to my dorm room and practiced reading out loud 📖🎧.
I listened to Barbara Walters 🎤📰, I listened to Oprah 🎙️📺. Then I would read out loud on the public access channel while they showed the menu for the day. 🖥️📜 I would read the menu out loud, record myself, and then go back and listen. 🎙️🔁
Anyway, I did that for a couple of months and went back to the radio station. And—to make a long story short—she said, "Okay, you have improved!" 🙌📻
So, she gave me a show; it was called Consumer Corner. I will never forget that! All I did on that show was read public service announcements [LOL]. 🤣🎙️ I know it was called Consumer Corner, but it was my show, honey! 💅🎧 [LOL].
I was on the radio! 🎤💖 People would listen to me, and they knew me! Everything that I wanted from the acting thing—I got it. 🎭📻✨
Jay 🎤: So as far as the Girl Talk Foundation 💖👩🏾🤝👩🏽, what was your inspiration in getting that started?
Janine 🎙️: My niece; I don't know how old she was at the time [2003] 📅, but we had a conversation about life and what she wanted to be, blah, blah, blah. And she said her one dream was to be a dancer in a rap video 🎶💃. There is nothing wrong with that, but my concern was that that's all she knew—she made the decision based on not knowing anything else.
So I thought to myself, "I need her to be exposed to other opportunities! 💡✨" Like, why can't she be the owner of the studio that creates the video? 🎥🏢 Because she didn't know to think that way, I thought, "Wow! How many other little girls think like she's thinking? 🤔👧🏽" Like, "I can just be the video chick 🎬" rather than the maker of the video 🎥."
So that kind of really inspired me, and then things just kind of grew from that. You know, still being in radio at the time, I was exposed to the opportunity to always be in front of young ladies 🎤👩🏽🏫—and teenagers in general.
Working at an urban hip-hop station 🎵🎶, we would go out and speak to these kids in middle school 🏫📚 and high school 🎓, just talking about the importance of education 📖💡 and answering their questions.
There was this one school where my co-workers were not assigned, and since it was all men 🎙️👨🏽, except for me, I went by myself. There were about 20 young ladies 👧🏾👧🏻👧🏽 in the group, and we were talking about, again, *"What do you wanna be when you grow up?"* 🌟
After the session was done, ten of the girls stayed behind. And they started opening up to me—about all of their problems. Everything that was happening on the school bus 🚌, things happening at home 🏡, in the boys' locker room 🚻🏋🏽, the girls' locker room 🚺—whatever it was, they brought it up. It turned into a kind of venting session 💭😔, and I realized just how much these girls needed a safe space to talk and be heard. 💖👂