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Jazz 91.9 WCLK | Membership Matters

Stan Washington Helped to Launch WCLK Fifty Years Ago in April 1974

Kiplyn Primus and Stan Washington in 2023 and 2016 with young Stan Washington journalists. Stan Washington was the second new director for WCLK and we speak about his student days in honor of our 50th Anniversary.
Kiplyn Primus and StoryCorps Atlanta
Kiplyn Primus and Stan Washington in 2023 and 2016 with young journalist Stan Washington decades earlier. Washington was the second news director for WCLK and we speak about his student days in honor of our 50th Anniversary.

Stan Washington is a native of Atlanta who grew up in the Mozley Park neighborhood. A graduate of Turner High School, Washington not only played football but was also the editor of the school paper. At Clark College, now CAU, he honed his journalism skills as the first news director at the WCLK. Stan Washington is a senior editor at the Atlanta Voice.

I asked Washington how he knew at an early age that journalism was for him, and he spoke about wanting to be a professional ball player. Washington speaks about joining the WCLK team. He stuttered and didn’t consider being on the air but loved the behind-the-scenes action of radio.

Washington shared how WCLK came to break the news regarding the death of Alberta Williams King, the mother of Martin Luther King, Jr. He shared that phone calls had come from a colleague's mother. They raced from the CAU campus to Ebenezer and were the first news team on the scene. Their story and photographs went out on the news wires taking the breaking news and WCLK worldwide.

A founding member of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists, Washington has prepared young journalists for positions all over the United States.

For more information on Stan Washington

For more information on the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists