Here Comes Tomorrow: The First Black Radio Soap Opera

Journalist Richard
Durham

The soap opera was one of the most popular formats during the days of Old Time Radio. The vast majority of soap operas to air on American radio centred on white characters. An exception was the short-lived radio show Here Comes Tomorrow. There series focused on an African American family. It aired on WJJD in Chicago between 1947 and 1948.

Here Comes Tomorrow centred on the Redmond family, including a Black pilot who served in the 99th Pursuit Squadron (part of what would later become known as the Tuskegee Airmen) who returned from World War II with amnesia. It was created by Richard Durham, a Black journalist who had written for New Masses, the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Star, and the Illinois Standard. He would go onto create the radio show Destination Freedom. Richard Durham was also a co-founder of the Du Bois Theatre Guild, which staged Here Comes Tomorrow. It was sponsored by Metropolitan Mutual Insurance. 

The cast of Here Comes Tomorrow included Janice Kingslow, who had appeared in the play Anna Lucasta and later appeared on the radio shows Destination Freedom and Democracy U.S.A; Wezlyn Tildon, a journalist who also acted on radio, singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, and actor Oscar Brown, Jr.; and Fred Pinkard, who would later appear in shows such as The Jeffersons and movies such as Rocky II (1979), and Harris Gaines, Jr.. Richard Durham and Jack Gibson wrote Here Comes Tomorrow. Allen Harris was its director. 

Here Comes Tomorrow was well regarded. In 1948, it took second prize in the "Dramatic Programs, 50,000 Watts" category in  a Billboard program competition. The review in the November 20, 1948, issue of Billboard, stated, "If all "soap operas" were as well written, produced and directed as this show, if they all had its intense dramatic content, its social significance and its potential as a weapon against intolerance, no one would  ever again have cause to level an accusing finger at daytime dramatic serials." According to Jack Gibson, it could also be controversial. Speaking with Smithsonian Productions, he said, "There were times that the script was so strong they used to have to take us out of the studios by freight elevators and put us in taxi cabs and go up the alley." 

Here Comes Tomorrow ended it run in 1948, but it would not be the last Black radio show to come out of Chicago. In 1948, Richard Durham created Destination Freedom, which aired live on WMAQ in Chicago. That show would run on-and-off until 1941. While Here Comes Tomorrow did not last long, it was certainly a pioneering show.