The owner of Knoxville, Tennessee’s only Black-owned radio station, WJBE, is fighting back against the Federal Communications Commission as the agency is threatening to revoke his broadcast license because of a prior felony conviction.
Joe Armstrong, the owner of WJBE 99.7 FM/1040 AM — whose call letters pay tribute to the original WJBE’s owner, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown — told NPR that the FCC is threatening to revoke his broadcast license over his prior conviction for a tax crime, one that occurred years before he took ownership of the station in 2012.
Armstrong said the radio station is a fixture in Knoxville, serving as a source of news for the Black community — being very much a community-oriented station. It broadcasts local news and weather, church services, emerging artists, free advertising for struggling small businesses and, in recent years, information about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Institute for Justice, a civil rights group that is representing Armstrong’s case.
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