William Barlow has called Jack L. Cooper the "undisputed patriarch of black radio in the United States." Cooper, a Chicago-based radio entrepreneur and personality, debuted on the medium in 1925 and within five years had become the most influential black man in the radio industry. He would prove that blacks could succeed as radio personalities, programmers, and entrepreneurs, thereby helping to ignite the accelerated growth of black-appeal radio in the post-World War II era.

     When Cooper entered radio in 1925 at the age of 36, he had played semi-professional baseball, managed boxers, sang and danced in black minstrel shows, and toured the nation in his own vaudeville troupe. In 1924 he was covering the theater scene for the Chicago Defender when the paper transferred him to Washington, D.C. It was in the nation's capital that Cooper heard a black singing group on radio station WCAP and realized that the only time he ever heard blacks on radio was when they were singing, never speaking. Hoping to correct this omission, he approached WCAP about performing comedy on the air. A producer there hired him, but racial attitudes of the day dictated that he would perform only in stereotypical black dialect. The confinement to dialect and other indignities he faced at the station frustrated Cooper so much that he returned to Chicago in 1926. But WCAP had marked a turning point in his career; he saw an opportunity in radio, an opportunity that would do much to break the color line in broadcasting. He returned to Chicago determined to produce radio programming by black people for black people.

     While Cooper continued to write for the Defender, he found an announcing position with radio station WWAE. But he failed to find an outlet in Chicago that would allow him to broadcast black-appeal programming until he met Joseph Sil­verstein, who owned WSBC, a small station that featured various ethnic programs. Silverstein gave Cooper airtime and paid him with proceeds from advertising that Cooper himself sold. On 3 November 1929 at 5:00 P.M., Cooper launched The All-Negro Hour, which featured vaudeville-like entertainment for the black audience. In producing and presenting The Al/­ Negro Hour, Cooper pioneered black-appeal programming, beginning a trend that would spread with some vigor after World War II.

     Within a year of The All-Negro Hour's premiere, Cooper introduced a number of new programs for the black audience, most of them religious in nature. The Great Depression of the 1930s limited the amount of advertising income Cooper generated from his programs, but by the late 1930s his income and influence grew when he began brokering time on Chicago radio. Cooper bought airtime, initially from WSBC only, and then resold it at a large profit to individuals and groups who used the time for various purposes. In addition, as he produced more programs through his Jack L. Cooper Presentations and as the Depression's grip loosened, black and white businesses, both local and national, began buying advertising from Cooper with increasing regularity.  

     By 1947 Jack L. Cooper Presentations was producing programs on Chicago's WSBC, WHFC, WBEE, and WAAF. He controlled some 40 hours of airtime on the Chicago stations. The shows reflected Cooper's panoply of interests: in addition to religious and variety programs, he produced public-affairs and public service shows, live broadcasts of sporting events, dramas, and comedies.

     As Cooper's presence on Chicago radio expanded, so did the trails he was blazing for the black-appeal format. It was unheard of in the 1930s and 1940s for a black man to control any programming, but Cooper's production company (which was based in his home) at its peak produced some 50 programs primarily for black audiences and at the same time made a handsome profit. He would serve as a model for the white owners and program directors who would haltingly begin to woo the black audience in the 1940s. WDIA in Memphis, the first all-black-appeal station in America (1949) would be the culmination of what Cooper had begun in the late 1920s.

     Just as Cooper was making a way for the black format, he was also making a way for black employment in radio. The success of Cooper's programs hinged on the efforts of black employees: Cooper featured black actors and musicians and hired black writers and disc jockeys. In addition, blacks found employment on the operations side of his business. Barlow noted in 1999 that many of Cooper's "employee-trainees went on to successful careers in broadcasting; among the best known are Oliver Edwards, Eddie Plique, Manny Mauldin, William Kinnison, and Gertrude Roberts Cooper-the boss' third wife." Among the other firsts in Jack L. Cooper's pioneering career was his status as America's first black disc jockey. One Sunday evening in 1932, The All-Negro Hour's pianist walked out on the show at the last minute to protest Cooper's refusal to give her a pay raise. In her absence, the boss improvised by putting a microphone by a small record player and spinning records. Over the years, Cooper would continue to rely on records for much of his musical programming, although, according to many of his contemporaries, he often eschewed the blues music so popular among blacks in favor of jazz and white dance music.

     Jack L. Cooper built a small empire in black radio, controlling significant periods of airtime in one of America's largest markets and hiring many blacks to work in the industry during a time when virtually no other opportunities were available to blacks in radio. He demonstrated that blacks could succeed in radio and that black-appeal programming could be profitable. In the final analysis, Cooper's work proved to be an important factor leading to the substantial growth of black-appeal programming and black employment in radio during the late 1940s and 1950s.

     Cooper continued to broadcast into the 1960s, when failing eyesight forced him to retire. He died in 1970.