WASHINGTON, D.C. — She founded the company presently known as Urban One and run by her son, Alfred Liggins III.
On Tuesday, Cathy Hughes was recognized for her 40 years of service to African American media consumers on Capitol Hill.
Non-voting District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes-Norton took to the House floor to recognize Hughes on her 40 years as the leader of Urban One, “now America’s largest
Black broadcast network.”
She spoke fondly of the Urban One founder and chairperson, noting that Hughes has “dedicated her career to amplifying the voices of Black people and their perspectives through the airwaves.”
Hughes is a native of Omaha and is known to have hosted “radio shows” in her bathroom as a child. “Hughes had her sights on success from day one,” Holmes Norton said.
“Throughout her career, her piercing optimism and resilience cut through obstacles of
discrimination and discouragement, clearing a path to where she now stands as one of our
country’s wealthiest self-made African-American women.”
Hughes became a mother at the age of 16, and took her son to classes. Later in her career, he snoozed in a sleeping bag in her office at times she had to work late.
“Growing up among a family of entrepreneurs, as Hughes did, she was no stranger to hard work, business jargon and long hours,” Holmes Norton said. Hughes’ father was the first African American to earn an accounting degree from Creighton University. Her mother
played trombone.
Hughes has been in the District of Columbia since 1971, when she joined Howard University’s commercially licensed R&B WHUR-FM 96.3 in Washington, D.C. There, she would rise to General Sales Manager.
In the final weeks of the 1970s, she would purchase WOL-AM 1450, the foundation of what would become Radio One. The station had a rich history of serving Black listeners in the National Capital Region, and debuted in the mid-1960s under Sonderling Broadcasting. It would pass to Viacom hands in the mid-1970s, and prior to its sale to Hughes and a business partner had been finger-pointed as part of a “Payola” scandal at stations superserving Black listeners.
After seven years, the radio station became profitable and continued to grow, mainly as a Talk station against big FM competition.
In 1999, at the recommendation of her son, Alfred Liggins III, Hughes became the first African-American woman to chair a publicly held corporation, following the sale of more than seven million shares of common stock to the public.
Now in the background at a company that today includes the TV One and Cleo cable TV channels and the Reach Media national syndication and sales arm, Holmes Norton concluded her comments by recognizing Hughes’ “resilience, optimism and determination.”
Holmes Norton concluded, “She has mentored countless women and her entrepreneurial energy has touched many, both in D.C. and across the nation. I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the accomplishments of Cathy Hughes on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Urban One.”
