SALUTE PAUL(TALL PAUL) WHITE:

Paul Dudley “Tall Paul” White was a popular African American disc jockey of the 1960s on WENN-AM. He and his broadcast colleague Shelly the Playboy Stewart were known to broadcast coded messages to civil rights demonstrators during the Birmingham campaign of the early 1960s. White was the son of Elmore and Minnie White of Titusville, and was born at Hillman Hospital. As a child he traveled with his mother, a popular preacher in the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, often taking the pulpit himself. They settled in at the Mason City Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God in 1947. White attended Spaulding Elementary School. In 1954 White enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Germany. After his return he finished his diploma at Rosedale High School in 1958. He worked briefly in Chicago, Illinois before returning to Alabama to take a job at Leroy and Viola Garrett’s WEUP-AM in Huntsville. There he became the first radio voice for the Alabama A&M University Bulldogs. Joe Lackey and Erskine Faush recruited White to broadcast Miles College Golden Bears football games on WENN and to read news stories during Shelley Stewart’s morning show in 1961. Tall Paul had a significant audience among white teenagers, demonstrated on one of the favorite feature of his shows — “Roll Call.” Tall Paul participated in the famous DJ walk-out in the mid-1970’s at WENN when new ownership fired Joe Dentici, the station’s white manager. The all-black announcing staff quit, a story which made national headlines at the time. Paul (Tall Paul) White passed away August 19th 2001