Herbert Wallace Butterworth (October 25, 1901 – February 24, 1974) was an American radio announcer and host of variety and quiz shows. Later in his life, he was active in opposing the

Civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. Born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Butterworth aspired to be a singer from an early age. He took singing lessons and after graduating from

Swarthmore High School Swarthmore High School was a four-year public high school in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania serving the Boroughs of Swarthmore and Rutledge. History Swarthmore established its own independent school district when Swarthmore Borough incorporated in 18 ...

as president of his class, made two singing tours in

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and the eastern United States. (The collection is held at the University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives in Eugene, OR.) Butterworth auditioned for the role as an announcer for

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radio in

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in the early 1930s. He gained the job and was stationed in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He covered the Chicago Civic Opera, the Symphony, football games and livestock parades. After a stint in the Navy, he was hired as the announcer of ''

Vox Pop ( )Vox Populi
. Oxford Diction ...

'', but in 1936, co-host Jerry Belcher left the program, and Butterworth took over as host. In 1939, the show moved from NBC radio to

CBS radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

. His work on ''Vox Pop'' led Butterworth to host other quiz programs, some of which he created. This continued from the late 1930s until the early 1960s. Butterworth lost a lawsuit against

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

over a contract for a television quiz show which he felt was directly modeled after one of his radio programs. The lawsuit between Butterworth and GE led him to become politically active. He broadcast a radio program in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

on which he opposed the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

convention and attacked

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, non-Christians and

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. The show was cancelled after being on the air for only two weeks, and the resulting lawsuit he filed against the radio station was unsuccessful. Around 1961, the

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

offshoot of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

, the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan used recordings narrated by Butterworth for promotion. With James Venable, Butterworth formed the Defensive Legion of Registered Americans in 1962. For its off-shoot, the Christian Voters and Buyers League, Butterworth narrated a series of spoken voice recordings promoting

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, and a

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

Kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

products. Butterworth died in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

on February 24, 1974.

References

External links

Wally Butterworth political recordings
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Wally 1901 births 1974 deaths American radio personalities American Ku Klux Klan members American segregationists Radio personalities from Philadelphia Activists from Georgia (U.S. state)