Atlanta’s iconic jazz station, Jazz 91.9 WCLK, is fighting to survive.
For more than 50 years, the Clark Atlanta University–owned station has been more than a place to hear jazz: it has been a cultural anchor for Black Atlanta and a training ground for generations of AUC students to break into the media industry.
But one year after celebrating its 50th anniversary, the station is facing a financial crisis that threatens its future.
This summer, Congress approved the Trump administration’s proposal to cut $1.1 billion in federal funds to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of a broader recession package. The move wipes out federal support for NPR, PBS, and their member stations across the country. Shortly after, CPB announced it would wind down nearly all operations this fall, retaining only a small compliance team through January 2026.
For WCLK, the consequences of the funding cuts are immediate and severe: a $300,000 annual loss in funding. These cuts jeopardize the station’s ability to maintain quality programming, impact the ability to keep or add new staff, and threaten the stipends for Clark Atlanta University students who rely on the station for paid media training.
The radio station has more than 100,000 listeners each week, plus a global streaming audience as its programming includes not just jazz music but also news and cultural shows, such as Drive Time with Dr. Douglass, Upfront/Inside Atlanta’s Entertainment Industry with Ray Cornelius, and Money Making Conversations with Rushion McDonald.
The station has hosted jazz artists such as Gregory Porter, Natalie Cole, and Dianne Reeves, and in 2022, the station launched the Jazz Music Awards.
“What CPB provided might have been 10 to 15% of our budget, but it was the part that kept us flexible,” the station’s manager, Wendy Williams, told Capital B Atlanta. “When equipment breaks, like our transmitter this year, that money mattered. When students needed stipends, that money mattered.”
Williams, who has been running the station for 31 years, said that she worries about how the funding cuts will impact the aspiring radio and broadcast students who use WCLK as a training ground.
She said for many Clark Atlanta University students, it’s often their first meaningful job in media, their first opportunity to be mentored by Black industry professionals, and a place where their voices and experiences are valued.
“Students at an HBCU can walk into a major-market radio station and learn from people who look like them, on day one,” Williams said. “That’s rare. And that’s priceless.”
A former student’s journey through WCLK
For former WCLK intern and employee Timothy Taylor, the station didn’t just shape his college years, it helped launch his career trajectory.
Taylor, a 23-year-old Detroit native and current graduate student at Syracuse University studying radio, TV and film, interned for two semesters during his junior year at Clark Atlanta University. He was then hired as an assistant producer his senior year, working under longtime WCLK production manager Jahmi Wellman.
“I love the guy — I can’t say anything bad about him,” Taylor told Capital B Atlanta. “Just being able to work under him, hear his expertise … that was a blessing.”
Some of his favorite memories include producing interviews for Cornelius and meeting celebrities who frequented the station, from actors like Mario Van Peebles to musicians performing in Atlanta.
At the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Taylor said he first understood how deeply WCLK was woven into the city’s cultural fabric. While working at the festival for the radio station, he ended up walking around the event with on-air personality Rick Joyner. He watched crowds stop Joyner for photos and conversation.
“Everybody knew him,” Taylor said. “Just seeing how much he means to the community was really cool.”
Yet what stayed with Taylor most wasn’t proximity to celebrities — it was the mentorship and family-like environment.
He described longtime staff member Eugenia Ricks as a second mother figure. “I called her ‘Ma,’ and that’s not something I take lightly,” Taylor said. “She’d check on me, ask if I had food, even give me money for groceries. Just the love aspect, looking out for each other, that’s what made it so meaningful.”
Taylor said working at WCLK taught him real-world lessons about deadlines, responsibility, and professionalism, lessons that helped him get into graduate school.
“Having WCLK on my résumé opened doors,” he said. “It’s the number one jazz station in Atlanta. If I worked there and had good references, people knew they could trust me.”
For Taylor, the prospect of funding cuts that jeopardize future paid internships is devastating.
“Personally, I think the cuts are horrible,” he said. “I still don’t see the logic. They’re affecting millions of lives.”
Losing student positions, he said, wouldn’t just impact students, but it would also rob WCLK’s staff of the chance to mentor the next generation of Black media professionals.
“It’s a big loss on both sides,” Taylor said. “Students lose their foot in the door, and the people who work there lose the chance to mentor creatives coming into this industry.”
If WCLK were ever forced to drastically cut programming, or shut down, Taylor said the cultural damage to Atlanta would be severe.
“We have die-hard listeners,” he said. “People who only listen to WCLK. You’re taking something away from the community.”
A cultural engine
Williams said that although CPB defunding had been threatened in the past, stations always believed Congress would preserve the decades-old system that ensures communities have access to noncommercial media.
“When the cut really happened, we were all taken aback,” Williams said. “Money had been approved, appropriated, and then rescinded. It cut us to the core.”
By mid-August, WCLK and stations nationwide had only weeks to prepare for a sudden hole in their budgets. WCLK launched an emergency fundraising campaign set to end November 30. As of Williams’ latest update, they’ve raised roughly $190,000, with donations arriving daily.
“I’m still hopeful,” she said. “We’re marching toward that goal.”
Williams stressed that while the station isn’t in immediate danger of shutting down — thanks to decades of careful financial stewardship — the federal cuts require difficult decisions. WCLK has already negotiated vendor discounts, reconsidered news services, and begun pursuing foundation grants they previously didn’t rely on.
“There’s no other outlet like WCLK,” said Debb Moore, an announcer at WCLK. “We offer a cultural touchpoint, something people can’t get anywhere else in the city.”
As the emergency fundraising campaign approaches its end, Williams hopes Atlantans understand one thing: The station has survived 51 years not by accident, but because the community supported it.
“People think someone else will give, or that we don’t really need the money because they hear us on the air,” she said. “But if we’ve done this much with what we’ve had, imagine what more we could do with everyone’s help.”
Moore, who has been on air at WCLK for 34 years, said the urgency is clear. At recent concerts, listeners stopped her repeatedly to ask how they could help.
“People say, ‘I don’t have a lot, but I have something,’” she said. “That speaks to the heart of Atlanta. It tells me people believe in what we do.”
Taylor, now hundreds of miles away in graduate school, said he continues to talk about WCLK constantly
“My résumé is basically just WCLK,” he said. “I’m proud of that. I hope the people there know how much they mean to me.”
For him, and for generations of CAU students, the station shaped careers, confidence, and community.
“We’re as strong as the community makes us,” Williams said. “If people want jazz to continue, if they want this format, this history, this legacy, it will take their support.”
For more information or to make a donation, visit wclk.com or call (404) 880-8807.
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