Jack L. Cooper
Jack Leroy Cooper was the first AfricanAmerican radio disc jockey, described as the undisputed patriarch of black radio in the United States. In 2012, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, one of ten children of William and Lavina Cooper. He left home at the age of ten to work in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in his teens was a successful boxer and semiprofessional baseball player. By 1905 he was working in vaudeville on the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit as a singer and dancer, and started writing and producing sketches and stage shows, soon running his own touring troupe with his first wife. He managed at least two theaters for TOBA, and began writing for newspapers in Memphis and Indianapolis.
Source: Wikipedia