Do you know Mary Dee Dudley? She was the nation’s first Black female disc jockey, who started her career on the other side of Pennsylvania and later brought her talents to Philly. Her work broke racial and gender barriers, setting the stage for women DJs throughout the U.S.
A native of Homestead in Allegheny County, Dudley launched her daily 15-minute show, “Movin’ Around,'' on western PA’s WHOD in 1948, and after six months, it became an hour-long program. Two years later, it was bumped up to two hours.
Her coverage of community affairs, mixed with music and news, was a pioneering format. Her brother, Mal Goode — a Pittsburgh Courier reporter — ran a daily news segment covering Jim Crow segregation, housing, and politics. He eventually became the first Black national network news correspondent for the ABC-TV network.
But back to Mary Dee — she used her platform to amplify the voices of Black artists, interviewing national acts like Cab Calloway, Jackie Robinson, and Sarah Vaughan. Dudley left Pittsburgh in 1956 to work in Baltimore, and then she moved to Philly in 1958 to take a job at the radio station WHAT.
Here, she hosted a beloved gospel music broadcast called “Songs of Faith,” and she also emceed live gospel shows. Dudley lived in Strawberry Mansion and worked at WHAT until 1964, when she died at Hahnemann Hospital at age 52. Thousands of fans reportedly attended her funeral at Jones Memorial Baptist Church in North Philly.
