NCCU preserves nearly 400 hours of historical radio broadcasts

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Nearly 400 hours of historic radio broadcasts are returning to North Carolina Central University.

It's a rare collection of recordings capturing the voices, music, and stories that shaped the history of the Black community in North Carolina.

The recordings include original programming from the university's WNCU 90.7 FM jazz station.

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It comes as much of the material created at historically black radio stations is at risk of being lost.

"We were able to capsulate some of that audio from off of cassettes and minidiscs, which we currently didn't have access or the ability to digitize and so to have this opportunity for the funding and the resources that went behind digitizing all these files to now have archived here at North Carolina Central University in our archives as a collection is absolutely amazing," said Lackisha Sykes-Freeman, general manager of WNCU.

The HBCU radio preservation project will serve 28 other Historically Black Colleges and Universities, helping to preserve the legacy of black college radio.