William H. Dilday Jr., a Boston TV executive who moved to Jackson, Miss., in 1972 to manage the city’s NBC affiliate, becoming the country’s first Black person to run a commercial television station, died on July 27 in Newton, Mass.
His daughter Kenya Dilday said that he died at a hospital from complications after a fall.
The inquiry came after eight years of litigation by the United Church of Christ and a group of Black citizens against the station, which was owned by a local insurance company.
Like many TV stations in the Jim Crow-era South, WLBT had given scant coverage to the civil rights movement, or to the lives and concerns of Black Mississippians in general.
It refused to use courtesy titles when interviewing Black people, and once cut off a segment with Thurgood Marshall, replacing it with a sign reading, “Sorry — Cable Trouble.”
Persons:
William H, Dilday Jr, Kenya Dilday, Dilday, Jim Crow, WLBT, Thurgood Marshall, ”
Organizations:
Boston, NBC, United Church of Christ
Locations:
Jackson, Miss, Newton ,, WLBT, Mississippi’s