Written by Tanya Terry, with photo courtesy of WFLT 1420 AM
Alice Delaine Evans, known on air as Alice D., has retired from WFLT 1420 AM gospel radio station after 37 years as a radio announcer with them. A surprise celebration was held for Evans on January 11, at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, in Flint.
Evans has been told she is a living legend “many, many times by many people.” She told the Courier she considers herself “just an everyday person.”
“When I’m out and about with friends, people come up to you,” Evans said. “They want to talk to you. They think this and that and the other. I guess the thing to do is let it be what it is, and if a living legend is what you wish to call me, I humbly will accept it. I may not agree with it, but I will accept it. Everybody has something.”
Evans said her colleagues always remind her of how long she has been around and that she has “set the bar very high.”
“It was a hard road to hoe because everyone said one-I wouldn’t get in the business, that I wouldn’t stay in the business and that I wouldn’t be accepted,” she said. “Number one: I was Black. Number two: I was blind. Number three: I was a female. They already said I had three strikes and I would not succeed. I used to tell them: ‘How can I succeed if you don’t give me a chance?”’
Evans told the Courier one of the things she is most proud about is “being able to break so many glass ceilings.”
She was the first totally blind Black graduate from the Flint Public Schools. She graduated from Northwestern, where “all the special ed material for the blind was at at that time.”
“I broke glass ceilings when I graduated from high school 16th in my class of over 600 students from Northwestern, going to Michigan State being the first blind person to pledge Delta Sigma Theta (sorority) undergad and also being able to meet the legendary Dr. Lawrence or Dr. Larry Redd. He’s written a book. I chased him down the hall. All the advisors were more geared toward television, and I was geared towards radio. I asked Dr. Redd if he would be my advisor, and he said ‘yes.’ I was thrilled to pieces. I was profiled in Essence magazine in ’80 as an on air announcer with ‘DZ. But, I think the biggest accomplishment for me is setting an example for others to possibly follow or glean from, and getting respected in the industry. You may not like me, but you have to respect me because of what I’ve done and where I’ve come.”
According to Evans she “lived radio” from the time she was 9, and she still does.
“When I was a little, I used to steal everybody’s records, and I would, as they say, DJ to myself. So, by the time I got the opportunity to do it myself as a profession, I’d been ready!”
Evans started working in broadcasting and radio in high school, were she interned at WFLB, the radio station that was in the basement of Flint Central High School. In college she wrote and produced a 16-week series entitled “Soul Spotlight” where she did interviews, played music and gave job openings for the week, among other things. She did campus radio in East Lansing, just off the campus of Michigan State University. There, she was asked if she’d done it before.
“I said I’ve been working on it all my life.”
Her first professional radio job was at what is now KISS 107.1, formerly known as WTLZ and WWS 107.1 FM, in Saginaw. She then went on to become one of the original announcers with WDZZ, where she didn’t get to stay long, but she did train others.
“At first WFLT was contemporary Christian. They found their ratings were better with me at night. So, they decided to become urban gospel.”
She worked full time at General Motors, Fisher Guide and Buick Motor Division.
“Buick never panned out and gave me seniority,” said Evans. “So, I finally said: ‘Hey, I’m tired of being hired and fired, or hired and laid out. I think I’m going to go into what my degree is actually in, and that’s broadcasting.”’
She said it was nice to know there was a little bit of her left in these studios in all the people she has been blessed to show the radio announcing craft and skill to.
She is happy to have been able to show people that: “You can be limited in your facilities. But, if you’re limited in what you have and you take everything that you’ve got and do the best that you can and people love and accept you- I think that speaks volumes”
Evans is a member of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, where she sings in the choir, preaches and works as a minister on staff. She is a former chaplain of Delta, where she served for 25 years. She served on the City of Flint’s Human Relations Commission as the public relations person for their annual People’s People Award Dinner for 11 years. She is the vice president of the Smith Village Neighborhood Association, and she recently joined the Flint-Genesee County Chapter of the Genesee Federation for the Blind.
Evans shared she is “not all serious and no fun.”
“I love having fun. I love people. I love to laugh. I love to sing. I love to do a lot of things. I love to spend time with people who are very close to my heart and close to me. I can be pretty mischievous, too! But you have to find that side of me!”
One of the things she is interested in doing now that she is retired is cartoon voices because she said she is ” just a big kid.”
Evans stated: “I’m trying to adjust to see what’s next! I don’t know where my journey is going to take me.”
