Born: 1 September 1931, United States
Died: 19 September 1995
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Zilla Mays Hinton
The following excerpt is shared from The New Georgia Encyclopedia, which allows the use of protected materials for noncommercial educational purposes.
WAOK, an Atlanta AM radio station owned by Zenas Sears, was one of the first in the nation to feature as its primary format such African American musical forms as blues, rhythm and blues (R&B), and soul.
WAOK featured programs hosted by such local Atlanta R&B luminaries as Willie Lee Perryman and Zilla Mays. Mays started on WAOK as “The Mystery Lady” in 1954, and in 1955 (after revealing her identity) she hosted the “Dream Girl Show.” Sears, with help from Mays and Perryman, started the WAOK Road Shows, traveling revues that brought R&B and gospel music to venues around the Southeast.
During the early 1950s, in addition to his radio work, Sears became a representative of RCA Victor’s Groove Records imprint and produced for the label records by Mays, Perryman, and other R&B artists of the period. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he became involved with the civil rights movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., and his social views were reflected in WAOK’s programming, which included such programs as Two Worlds, a talk show that fostered dialogue between Blacks and whites in and around Atlanta, and a show featuring Sears and James “Alley Pat” Patrick, a popular Black disc jockey in Atlanta.
In 1968 WAOK altered its format from R&B to soul and in 1980 became a gospel station. Sears stayed on as program director until his death in 1988. Zilla Mays, who died in 1995, was a mainstay of the Sears operation, remaining at WAOK until the early 1990s and logging a total of thirty-seven years at the station.