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Nina Montgomery Queen of the Midday: The Soul, The Woman, and the Meaning Behind the Mic.
QUEEN OF THE MIDDAY The Story Behind the Voice Written by Nina Montgomery Co-written and Foreword by Dr. Tuesday Mahoney Career Coach, Mahoney Elite Consulting, LLC Copyright © 2026 Nina Montgomery. All rights reserved. The original written content, personal narrative, and original photographs and images contained in this book are the property of Nina Montgomery and/or their respective copyright owners, unless otherwise noted. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored, or shared in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the copyright owner, except for brief quotations used in reviews, scholarly works, or other uses permitted by applicable copyright law. Co-writing, editorial development, and foreword © 2026 Dr. Tuesday Mahoney, Mahoney Elite Consulting, LLC. The experiences and personal recollections presented in this book are told from the author's perspective and reflect her memories and understanding of events. Song titles and names of recording artists referenced throughout this book are used for identification and commentary purposes only. All trademarks, song copyrights, and other intellectual property remain the property of their respective owners. No song lyrics are reproduced without permission. First Edition — September 2026 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved.
Table Of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................. 1 About The Author ................................................................................... 4 Prelude: Introduction.............................................................................. 7 PART I — THE ROOTS OF THE VOICE ......................... 9 Chapter 1— The Legacy Voice: 37 Years On The Air ................... 10 Playlist: Mary J. Blige “Real Love” ................................... 10 Chapter 2 — The First Whisper: The Voice She Was Born With 16 Playlist: Xscape “Understanding” ..................................... 16 Chapter 3 — The Hidden Voice: When Childhood Becomes Responsibility .................................................................................... 22 Playlist: Toni Braxton “Breathe Again” • .......................... 22 Chapter 4 — The Untrained Voice: Finding Hers At Grambling 28 Playlist: Shirley Murdock “As We Lay” ............................. 28 PART II — THE RISE OF THE VOICE .......................... 34 Chapter 5 —The Working Voice: Becoming The Sound Of Shreveport ......................................................................................... 35 Playlist: En Vogue “Don’t Let Go” ..................................... 35 Chapter 6 — The Shaken Voice: What She Endured And Rose Above ................................................................................................. 51 Playlist: Lauryn Hill – “Ex-Factor” ................................... 51 Chapter 7 — The Breaking Voice: Love, Loss, And Motherhood ............................................................................................................ 57 Playlist: Deborah Cox “Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here” . 57 Chapter 8– The Exhausted Voice: Seven Days A Week................. 71 Playlist: Anita Baker – “I Apologize” ................................. 71 Chapter 9 – The Community Voice: Crowned By The People ..... 83
Playlist: “Optimistic” – Sounds Of Blackness .....................83 PART III — THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE VOICE ............................................................................................... 94 Chapter 10 — The Empowered Voice: Mentorship And Boundaries**.....................................................................................95 Playlist: Whitney Houston — “Step By Step” ......................95 Chapter 11— The Fully Owned Voice: Becoming Herself ..........101 Playlist: Lauryn Hill — “Everything Is Everything” .........101 Chapter 12 — The Healing Voice: I Am Magic — Growth Is L.E.G.A.C.Y. ................................................................................... 113 Playlist: Lauryn Hill — “Everything Is Everything” ......... 113 Epilogue — Give Mental Health A Voice: Breaking The Silence In The Black Community ...................................................................123 The Frequency Lives On .....................................................123 Nina’s Playlist Of Songs (Here) ..........................................................127 Nina’s Resources ..................................................................................131
— 1 — Foreword By Dr. Tuesday Williams Mahoney Certified Career Coach I am honored to introduce Queen of the Midday, the powerful and deeply personal story of Nina Montgomery the voice so many of us have trusted, loved, and grown up with on the air. Behind the microphone is a woman whose strength was forged early, raised by a single mother battling mental illness and stepping into the role of caregiver while still a child herself. Through life’s trials—motherhood, career battles, personal setbacks, and silent sacrifices—Nina never stopped showing up for her family, her listeners, and her community. This book is more than a radio story. It is a testimony of resilience, faith, and the quiet power of a Black woman who kept going even when life became heavy.
— 2 — My connection to Nina, however, began long before this book. It began with my mother. My mother was a faithful listener who won a radio contest for dinner for two, and she invited me to join her. That evening was the first time I met Nina not Nina the familiar voice coming through the radio, but Nina the woman behind the voice. I had no idea that one simple dinner would eventually lead me here, helping tell her story. My mother has since passed away, but Nina has never forgotten her. Even today, Nina will remind me of how sweet my mother was. That means more to me than she may ever fully understand. When someone you love is no longer here, there is something incredibly special about another person remembering them without being asked. When others may no longer mention my mother, Nina remembers her. In those moments, Nina gives me a small piece of my mother back. And that, to me, says everything about who Nina is. Nina remembers people. For decades, we have listened to her in our cars, homes, workplaces, and throughout the ordinary and extraordinary moments of our lives. Yet while we were listening to Nina, she was listening to us, too. She remembers the callers. She remembers the families. She remembers the stories. She understands that behind every listener is a person whose life matters. As I sat with Nina and listened to the stories that make up this book, I began to understand the woman beneath the title Queen of the Midday. I met the little girl who had to grow up too soon, the daughter who became a caregiver, the mother determined to provide for her children, the Black woman who had to repeatedly prove herself in a male-dominated industry, and the woman of faith
— 3 — who continued pouring into others even when she needed someone to pour into her. Perhaps Nina's greatest gift has never simply been her voice. It is her ability to make people feel seen, heard, valued—and remembered. There is something beautifully full-circle about my role in this story. My mother once invited me to dinner and introduced me to Nina. Years later, Nina continues to remind me of my mother. And now, I have the privilege of introducing Nina to you in a way many of us have never known her before. As you read, I invite you to reflect on your own journey—the people who shaped you, the sacrifices no one saw, the battles you fought quietly, and the strength you discovered along the way. Because Nina's story may be uniquely hers, but somewhere within these pages, you just might hear a little of your own. For years, we have known the voice. Now it is time to meet the woman behind it. Dr. Tuesday Mahoney, Ed.D. Empowering the People
— 4 — About the Author Nina Montgomery is an award-winning radio personality, program director, community advocate, mother, and grandmother whose unmistakable voice has been part of the soundtrack of Shreveport, Louisiana, for more than three decades. Born in Shreveport and raised for part of her childhood in California, Nina discovered the power of broadcasting while studying Mass Communications at Grambling State University. What began with early-morning news and college radio grew into a remarkable career that has included work with KGRM, KRUS, K104, KJLO, KYEA, KRVV, KMJJ, and KVMA. Today, Nina is best known as the longtime Midday On-Air Personality and Program Director of Cumulus Media's KVMA Magic 102.9, The Classic Soul Station. Her leadership eventually expanded beyond the station where listeners came to know her as the "Queen of the Midday." She has also served as Program
— 5 — Director for additional Cumulus Shreveport stations, demonstrating an ability to lead and program across multiple radio formats. But Nina's influence has never stopped when the microphone turns off. Throughout her career, she has used her platform to uplift families, support charitable causes, create community events, encourage listeners through difficult moments, and provide a familiar voice during some of the community's most significant moments. Her commitment to Shreveport's African American community has earned her recognition, but Nina has always measured her impact less by awards and more by the people she has been able to reach. Behind that celebrated voice is a story few listeners knew. Nina became a caregiver while she was still a child. She carried the complexities of her mother's mental illness, built a career while raising her own children, navigated personal trauma and health challenges, and fought to establish herself as a Black woman in a male-dominated industry. Through it all, faith, family, music, and an extraordinary ability to connect with people remained at the center of her life. Perhaps Nina's greatest gift is not simply that people remember her voice. She remembers theirs. She remembers the listeners, their families, their stories, their celebrations, and sometimes even their losses. That genuine connection has allowed generations of listeners to feel that Nina was not simply broadcasting to them—she was walking through life with them.
— 6 — Away from the microphone, Nina treasures her role as a mother and grandmother, enjoys music and creating memorable experiences, and has expressed a desire to write children's books that teach important life lessons. Queen of the Midday marks a new chapter in that journey. For years, Nina used the microphone to tell other people's stories, encourage her community, and remind listeners of their value. Now, she turns the microphone toward herself. This time, Nina Montgomery is telling her own story.
— 7 — Prelude: Introduction Queen of the Midday: Nina Montgomery — The Soul, The Woman, and the Meaning Behind the Mic She’s not just a DJ — she became the soul of a city. There’s something special about a familiar voice. The kind that greets you at lunch, lifts your mood on a cloudy day, and somehow says exactly what your heart needed to hear. For more than thirty-seven years, that voice has been mine — Nina Montgomery, the Queen of the Midday on Magic 102.9, Shreveport’s home for classic soul. But this book isn’t just about the music. It’s about the woman behind the mic — the single mother, the
— 8 — dreamer, the fighter, and the believer who learned how to smile on the radio while rebuilding herself in silence. I’ve spent decades helping people celebrate love, heal from heartbreak, and dance through their pain — all while learning those same lessons myself. Behind every love song I played, there was a moment I cried. Behind every laugh on-air, there was a prayer I whispered. This is my story — the real one. A story about music, motherhood, and meaning. About faith when the volume turned down, and joy when the rhythm returned. It’s about how a Black woman from Shreveport found her voice and used it to uplift a city that, in turn, lifted her. Over the years, I’ve learned that radio isn’t just about sound — it’s about soul. Every listener, every dedication, every voice that called in reminded me that we’re all trying to tune our hearts to something greater than ourselves. So this book is my thank-you. To the mothers who never stopped trying. To the women who loved and lost but never lost themselves. To the brother who hold it down and build family at the same time. To the listeners who kept me company when I was lonely, and to the city that made me its heartbeat. Because in the end, I didn’t just play the music — I became it. Welcome to my story the rhythm, the blues, and the beauty behind the magic.
— 9 — PART I THE ROOTS OF THE VOICE
— 10 — CHAPTER — 01— The Legacy Voice: 37 Years on the Air Playlist: Mary J. Blige “Real Love” This is Nina… and I am on the air. There is something sacred about the moment a microphone wakes up and the red ON AIR light glows. It’s a signal, a heartbeat, a cue that a room full of silence is about to become a sanctuary. Even after thirty-seven years, that moment still humbles me. The headphones slide on, the board warms under my fingertips, and I feel myself shift into the woman Shreveport knows so well—the
— 11 — Queen of the Midday, the smooth voice that drifts through office cubicles, barbershops, beauty shops, back roads, school pickup lines, and living rooms where somebody’s mama got the radio playing next to a pot of greens on low heat. My voice has lived in this community longer than some of my listeners have been alive. It still shocks me sometimes, not in a boastful way but in a grateful way, that a whole region has let me into their lives every single day. I didn’t grow up expecting my voice to mean anything to anybody. I didn’t grow up in a world where people listened when I spoke. But life has a way of taking what felt small and making it mighty. When I speak into this mic, I’m not performing—I’m connecting. That’s the part folks don’t see. Radio isn’t about being perfect. Radio is about being present. It’s about letting people feel something real in your tone, your cadence, your laughter, your breath between words. Over these decades, the Ark-La-Tex has taught me that the right voice at the right time can hold a whole community together. Shreveport is a sound-driven place. Always has been. The Port City is built on soul—Southern soul, old-school R&B, gospel harmonies, downhome blues, 90s classics, and that uniquely Black way of turning music into memory. I’ve always said that down here, we don’t just hear a song; we feel it in our bones. That’s why radio is so embedded in our culture. Families cook to it. Couples argue and make up with it. Churches let it play softly in kitchens. beauticians keep it on in the shop. Kids dance in the backseat to it. And every festival, parade, fish fry, or front-yard gathering has a radio playing in the background somewhere. A song comes on, and everybody pauses and goes, “Ooh, that’s my jam,” like the music itself knows their name. And right there, somewhere between Shirley Murdox, Mary J. Blige, and a little BB King, my voice slips in as part of the
— 12 — soundtrack. My listeners sing my theme song to me when they see me in Walmart or at the gas station. They yell, “Queen of the Middays!” across parking lots. They honk their horns when they drive by the station street team. They ask for pictures, not because they see me as a celebrity, but because they feel like they know me. That’s the highest honor—to be familiar, to be trusted, to be part of people’s daily rituals. I’ve been with this community through good times and the heavy times that left a shadow over all of us. When COVID hit and the streets emptied, when people were scared to breathe around each other, radio became a lifeline again. I remember walking into a quiet studio, lights dimmed, empty offices, no footsteps in the hallways—just me and my engineer keeping the station alive. The phone lines rang nonstop. People were grieving loved ones, losing jobs, feeling isolated in ways none of us could’ve imagined. And no matter how frightened we all felt, I stayed right here behind this mic, doing what I’ve always done—holding the city together with words, prayer, music, and companionship. I cried with callers. I comforted families. I shared verified news and safety updates when rumors were spreading like wildfire. And when folks needed encouragement, I put on music that felt like balm to the soul. We got through that season side by side, even when we were forced to stay apart. And when the world erupted with the Black Lives Matter movement, and grief and anger sat heavy in our chests, I didn’t hide behind a playlist. The mic has always been my ministry. I talked about our pain, our hope, our history, and our resilience. I honored the voices lost and the voices rising. I held that sacred space the way Black radio has always done—by speaking truth when the world feels unsafe and by reminding us who we are. People often ask why I never left Shreveport for a bigger market— why I didn’t pack up and take my voice to Houston or Dallas or
— 13 — Atlanta. Truth is, I’ve had opportunities. I’ve had stations whisper “What if…” and big-city programmers hint at possibilities. But my heart? It was here. My roots, my purpose, my calling—all of it stayed with the Port City. If you ever want to understand loyalty, look at a community that loves you without conditions. The Ark- La-Tex didn’t just listen to me—they embraced me. They made room for me. They trusted me with their stories, their celebrations, their grief, their joy. And they gave me something I didn’t get much of growing up: belonging. My job expanded over the years. I’ve hosted events that brought the whole city out—Family Block parties, Bayou Classic celebrations, toy drives, school programs, church unity gatherings, comedy shows, festivals, and concerts where celebrities walked offstage and walked straight into my studio saying, “Nina, I’ve heard about you for years.” And every single time, I’d laugh and remind them, “Hey, you might be famous, but the real celebrities are my listeners.” I mean that. I always have. Because it’s not the artists who keep radio alive—it’s the community. The mother picking up her kids from school humming along to SWV. The man driving a rig across state lines feeling less alone because a familiar voice is talking him through traffic. The school teacher cooking dinner after a long day, letting “Weak” or “Doo Wop” take her back to her twenties. The senior citizen who keeps the radio blue tribute on her nightstand to fight loneliness. The young folks building memories to the same songs their parents grew up on. Those are my people. Those are the ones I show up for. And those are the ones who have shown up for me. Sometimes people approach me with tears in their eyes, saying, “Nina, you got me through the hardest time of my life.” And every time, I’m left speechless—not because I doubt them, but because I
— 14 — know what it feels like to need a voice to pull you through. I know how sound can soothe a wound you don’t know how to name. I know how music can keep you sane when life is trying to spin you out. My listeners don’t know how often they have been my strength. Working seven days a week, juggling my family, my fears, my responsibilities—there were days I kept going because I knew somebody out there needed me on that mic. And over time, something shifted. The woman who spent years doubting her worth, questioning her impact, and hiding her own hurt behind a smile started believing something new—maybe I wasn’t just a voice people liked… maybe I was a voice people loved. That realization changed me. Nina’s Inspirational magic: Let me close this chapter speaking directly to my listening family, the way I do every day on the air. Our voices have always been our power. Before we had platforms, we had porch conversations. Before we had rights, we had rhythm. Before we had freedom, we had drumbeats, hymns, and call-and-response keeping us together. Black radio is part of that lineage—it carries our stories, our healing, our history, our laughter, our comfort, our courage. In a world that tries to silence us, our sound keeps us alive. To my Black men: you are needed. You are loved. You matter more than this world lets you believe. Show up for your children, your partners, your community, and yourself. Your presence is powerful. To my Black women: release the myth of being unbreakable. You deserve rest, softness, tenderness, counseling, and support. You do not have to carry everybody.
— 15 — To the babies growing up in homes where they feel unseen: you are worthy. You are precious. You are not the problem. To every family, every neighborhood, every elder, every child: stay connected. Talk to each other. Listen to each other. Love each other loud and without apology. And never forget—your voice carries the power of those who came before you. This is Nina Montgomery signing off… I’ll see you in the next chapter, baby. Stay tuned.
— 16 — CHAPTER — 02— THE FIRST WHISPER: The Voice She Was Born With Playlist: Xscape “Understanding” This is Nina… and I am on the air. Sometimes, before I play the first record or crack the mic for my midday show, I close my eyes and think about the little girl I used to be—the one who had no idea her voice would one day travel farther than her feet ever could. A little girl living in California with a mother whose light was beginning to flicker, a father who
— 17 — drifted in and out like a weak radio signal, and a world she was trying to hold together with hands too small for the weight they carried. When you hear my voice today—smooth, steady, warm— you would never guess its earliest sound was silence. Not peaceful silence. The kind of silence that grows inside a child trying to figure out why the grown-up she loves is slowly slipping away. People think a voice begins when someone opens their mouth. That’s not true. A voice begins the first time the world makes you quiet. My voice began in that space—between fear and responsibility, between confusion and loyalty, between a mother I adored and a reality I didn’t understand. My mother was young when she had me—sixteen years old, too young to fully raise a child, but strong enough to try. And before her illness took hold, she was a sharp woman. Educated. Well- spoken. Proud. She was the type who demanded good behavior, clear speech, nice posture, clean clothes, and respect—especially from me. She didn’t play about her baby. She pushed me to read well, speak clearly, and carry myself like I belonged in every room. I didn’t see it then, but she was giving me pieces of the woman I would later become. Before the mental illness, she had dreams for me that stretched wider than her own life. One of my most treasured childhood memories is the day I played Alice in Wonderland. I was the only Black Alice in the entire production, and honey—let me tell you—my mama did not let them take that lightly. When the school tried to switch the show around and make it difficult for me to keep my role because I was black, my mother marched in with her voice strong and clear and told them, “My daughter earned that part. She’s Alice. She wants to be Alice, She is a black Alice, and She will stay Alice.” She said it with that firm, unshakable tone only a Black mother can deliver— powerful enough to straighten spines and correct behavior. And they listened.
— 18 — For four shows, she skipped work and hide in the back of the room in that audience- smiled like she was witnessing history. She clapped the loudest. She celebrated with me like nothing in the world mattered more. That was one of the last clear times she felt fully present. One of the last times I remember being her daughter, not her caretaker. The applause faded, the costumes hung up, and something in my mother’s mind shifted into a different frequency—one I couldn’t tune into no matter how hard I tried. The first sign was the tape. My performance had been recorded, and my mother played it over and over and over again. At first, I thought she was proud. Then I realized she was holding onto something deeper—holding onto a moment where she still felt in control, still felt like herself. That tape became the bridge between the mother she had been and the mother she was becoming. Mental illness doesn’t storm into a home loudly. Sometimes it shows up quietly—like a station losing signal. The clarity starts to fade, the static grows, and before you realize what’s happening, you’re listening to someone you love drift beyond the reach of your voice. My mother was twenty-seven when schizophrenia and paranoia wrapped their hands around her mind. Twenty-seven. A Louisiana baby still, trying to raise a baby in California all alone. And when her mind fractured, I became the glue. By the time I was eleven, silence had become my voice. Watching. Anticipating. Soothing. Navigating. Protecting. Doing things no child should ever have to do alone. We lived in California then where mom had never learned to drive due to a tragic childhood car accident. It was just the two of us—me riding buses and pushing shopping carts and carrying responsibilities that should have belonged to adults. But when the world doesn’t give you a choice, you learn fast. I learned how to calm her when she was frightened, how to read her moods, how to carry the fear in my
— 19 — chest without letting it show on my face. Eleven years old, already a crisis manager. Mom was diagnosed and my voice went silent. Eventually, our family stepped in and brought us back to Louisiana. I remember that move not as a relocation, but as a rescue. But even then, the weight didn’t leave my shoulders. I carried my mother’s illness inside me—not as shame, but as duty. I loved her fiercely. I still do. The illness wasn’t her fault. But it shaped me in ways I would spend the rest of my life trying to understand. My father—well, he was there and not there. Keep in mind he was a teen also when they had me. He drifted like a weak radio signal, clear for a moment and gone the next. My most vivid memory of him from childhood was the day he brought me a little bike. I was three years old. He tried to teach me to ride it, trying to balance me. He got frustrated when I didn’t learn fast enough, and disappeared from my life shortly after. That bike became a symbol I carried for decades—not resentment, but longing. A little girl waiting for a father to stay. Waiting for someone to balance her when everything else felt unstable. I kept that memory tucked away, even into adulthood. And now, here I am—grown as I am— learning to ride a bike again because the little girl in me deserves to be held up, guided them emotionally like only a father could do. I learned over the years that God is the balance I had been seeking. Therefore, my dear listening I will ride that bike! I would never speak ill of my parents. I loved them. I still do. My teen mother’s illness wasn’t her choice. My young father’s absence wasn’t my fault. But childhood has a way of making you blame yourself for things you didn’t break. I walked around for years thinking I wasn’t enough to make people stay, or love me right, or choose me. Those beliefs cling to you like shadows until life starts shining light through the cracks.
— 20 — What saved me back then wasn’t understanding—it was survival. And what saved me later wasn’t perfection—it was voice. My voice. The one that grew inside the silence. The one that refused to die, even when life tried to mute it. Nina’s Inspirational magic aby, let me talk to the heart in you—the tender places we don’t always name out loud. A lot of us in the Black community grew up carrying emotional weight we never should’ve touched. We loved parents who were fighting battles nobody talked about. We learned to be strong before we learned to be children. And some of us walked into adulthood believing the lies our childhood taught us— that we were too much, or not enough, or somehow at fault for things that were bigger than any child could handle. Hear me clearly: you are not responsible for your parents’ wounds or their illness. You didn’t break what life handed them. You didn’t fail them. You survived them. And survival is not shame—it’s strength. Black families have endured so much generational silence around mental health, trauma, and emotional instability. We’ve normalized suffering to the point where children become caregivers, partners become therapists, and love becomes labor. But that doesn’t mean we can’t break the cycle. That doesn’t mean we can’t name what hurt us and still honor who we love. If you grew up in a home heavy with pain, you deserve healing. If you were the child who smoothed over chaos, you deserve rest. If
— 21 — you’ve been searching for a love you never received, know that you are worthy of it. And if your parents failed you in ways they couldn’t see, forgiveness doesn’t erase the truth—but it frees your heart to breathe again. This is Nina… fading out. Meet me in the next chapter, baby. We’re just getting started.
— 22 — CHAPTER — 03— THE HIDDEN VOICE: When Childhood Becomes Responsibility Playlist: Toni Braxton “Breathe Again” • This is Nina… and I am on the air. Some stories don’t begin with a moment. Some begin with a shift—the kind you don’t notice right away, like a slow fade in a song where the background instruments disappear one by one until you realize you’re listening to something entirely different than what you started with. That’s how childhood ended for me—not
— 23 — with a big, dramatic crash, but with small changes that turned into a whole new reality. One day I was a child, and the next day I was something else. A caretaker. A protector. A little girl living in a world too heavy for her feet but too familiar to run from. By the time I was eleven years old, I understood things most children never think about. I understood moods, tone shifts, fear that sits quiet under your skin, and the responsibility of watching over someone whose mind had slipped into a different dimension. Mental illness doesn’t just affect the person who has it—it rearranges the entire house. It changes the air, the rhythm, the silence, the expectations. It rewrites relationships without asking permission. And when you’re a child inside that kind of home, you learn quickly what you must do to keep things from falling apart. In California, it was just me and my mother for a full year—twelve months that felt eternal and empty at the same time. The adults in our life didn’t see everything right away. They didn’t know how deep her illness had taken root. They didn’t know I was riding buses alone, helping her navigate her episodes, trying to calm her fears, keeping our routines afloat like a tiny captain steering a ship through storms she couldn’t understand. I had no language for schizophrenia. No name for paranoia. No explanation for why the mother I knew—stern, elegant, smart, vocal—was fading into confusion and fear. All I knew was that I had to be steady. I had to find a frequency. I had to tone into my voice. I learned to be quiet when she was anxious. I learned to talk gently when she was overwhelmed. I learned to take the lead when she couldn’t process our surroundings. I learned how to hide my own fear so she wouldn’t see it and unravel more. Children do that— they become mirrors for the adults they love. They adjust their emotions like a dimmer switch, based on what they think will keep the house from shaking. I didn’t know that wasn’t normal. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be the one carrying the emotional load.
— 24 — I just did it, because love makes children do things even superheroes would struggle with. There were nights I prayed without fully understanding prayer. There were mornings I woke up with my heart already racing because I didn’t know what the day would bring. I was eleven, but inside I felt forty—weighted, responsible, alert. My childhood didn’t just get interrupted; it got outsourced. I became the adult in the room while the adult who brought me into the world became fragmented by a sickness I didn’t choose. When family finally intervened and brought us back to Louisiana, it wasn’t just a change of place. It was a rescue mission. I didn’t understand then that I had been living in survival mode so long that I no longer recognized peace. When we returned home, I exhaled for the first time in a year. But here’s the secret about children who become caregivers: even when the crisis ends, the reflex doesn’t. Back in Louisiana, I still listened too carefully. Still anticipated needs before they were spoken. Still felt responsible for managing adult emotions. My mother was no longer geographically alone— but emotionally and mentally, she was still unreachable in ways that shaped me forever. And I didn’t resent her. I loved her. I loved her with the kind of intensity children reserve for parents who feel both fragile and precious. She wasn’t her illness. She was my mother. And I tried to protect that truth even when the world didn’t understand her. Moving back meant reconnecting with extended family, including my grandmother—our Big Mama. Our relationship was complicated, not in a harmful way, but in a patterned way. Because of my mother’s youth, her instability, and our family’s expectations, I found myself slipping into another caregiving role. I soaked Big Mama’s feet, washed her laundry, helped around the house, and tended to her the same way I had learned to tend to my
— 25 — mother. It wasn’t asked outright—it was assumed. I was the “capable one,” the “mature one,” the “responsible one.” And like any child trained by circumstance, I didn’t question it. Only years later did I learn that my cousins—my mother’s siblings’ children—didn’t have the same kind of duties placed on them. I was treated differently. Not cruelly, but differently. And for a long time, I thought it meant something was wrong with me. But now, as a grown woman, I understand something deeply: Black families often pour adult responsibilities into the children they believe can handle them. Not because they don’t love them, but because they see strength and forget it’s still wrapped in childhood. Growing up that way shapes the voice within you. Not the kind that speaks out loud, but the kind that listens. When you’ve lived around silence, tension, and emotional unpredictability, you learn to hear more than words. You learn people. You learn energy. You learn to read a room instantly, how to adapt, how to soothe, how to sense when someone is hurting underneath their smile. That sensitivity—born out of hardship—became the foundation of my entire radio career. Long before Shreveport ever heard my voice, life was teaching me how to hear others. I didn’t know it then, but every struggle, every responsibility, every quiet tear, every moment I felt unseen or overwhelmed was shaping the woman who would one day become the Queen of the Midday. The voice you hear on your radio at lunchtime—the steady one, the warm one, the comforting one—was molded from the silence of that eleven-year-old girl in California holding her mother’s world together. A girl who didn’t have the luxury of breaking down. A girl who learned to survive by listening first, speaking second, and loving always. Sometimes I think about her—the little girl who grew up too fast— and I wish I could hug her. Tell her she deserved safety. Tell her
— 26 — she wasn’t invisible. Tell her she didn’t fail just because the adults around her were hurting. Tell her she wasn’t responsible for fixing a sickness she did not cause. That little girl deserved softness. She deserved ease. She deserved someone to carry her when she was tired. But God has a way of turning burdens into gifts. What I carried in childhood became the voice that carries others now, during midday. Nina Says: Let me say this to every grown person still healing from a childhood that asked too much of you: you are not alone, and you are not broken. In Black families, we don’t always recognize when a child has stepped into an adult’s shoes. We praise their maturity, their strength, their helpfulness, without realizing they are drowning quietly while smiling politely. If you were the child who managed chaos, the child who kept your household together, the child who comforted a parent during their darkest moments, hear me clearly: you were never meant to carry that load. You did the best you could with what you had, but the weight was never yours. We have to talk more openly about children who are parentified— children who grow up translating adult emotions, managing adult responsibilities, and absorbing adult pain before their hearts are fully formed. We must protect them, not praise them for surviving what they should have been shielded from. And if you were one of those children, the healing you need is real. You deserve therapy, rest, boundaries, and the freedom to be vulnerable. You deserve to put that cape down. Your inner child is still in there, waiting to be acknowledged, nurtured, and loved without condition.
— 27 — You did not fail your family. Your family failed to protect your innocence. But the story does not end there. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to heal. You are allowed to be whole. This is Nina signing off… Stay on this wavelength, baby. Chapter Four is coming up next.
— 28 — CHAPTER — 04 — THE UNTRAINED VOICE: Finding Hers at Grambling Playlist: Shirley Murdock “As We Lay” This is Nina… and I am on the air. Leaving home isn’t always a physical move. Sometimes it’s an emotional permission slip you write for yourself—the moment you decide that if you don’t step out, you’ll drown where you’re standing. For me, Grambling State University wasn’t just a college. It was oxygen. It was freedom. It was the first time in my young
— 29 — life that the world asked me, “Nina, what do you want?” And for the first time, I didn’t carry the weight of someone else’s crisis while answering. It didn’t happen overnight. Before Grambling became my escape, it was a slow, careful process of preparing my mother for what my heart needed—to breathe, to grow, to learn who I was away from fear and illness. I didn’t pack my bags and leave instantly. I eased out. First a night away. Then a weekend. Then a few more hours each visit, testing the waters to see if she could function without me. I never abandoned her; I transitioned her. Because that’s what children do when they’ve been caretakers—they don’t run. They step away in tiny, cautious pieces. And in those pieces, I found myself. By the time I stepped onto Grambling’s campus as a freshman, I felt like I had stepped into an entirely different universe. Grambling had sound—beautiful sound. Laughter in the yard. Marching Tigar band horns floating across the campus like sunlight with rhythm. Tigar voices everywhere. Students arguing about politics, planning block parties, singing on benches, calling out to friends across the quad. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like a shadow. I felt like a person. A young woman. A student. A Tigar. Someone allowed to want something. To create a voice. But wanting and believing are two different things. I walked onto that campus with a heart full of hope and a confidence built out of survival—not out of self-love. I knew how to care for people. I knew how to read people. I knew how to be strong. But I didn’t yet know how to believe I belonged. That’s how I ended up in a voice class. I didn’t want to be a singer. I wanted to find the girl who used to sing before life made her quiet. I wanted to reclaim something the eleven-year-old me had
— 30 — lost somewhere between California bus rides and my mother’s breaking point. I told myself, “Maybe if I find my singing voice again, I’ll find myself again.” But healing doesn’t always come softly. I remember the day the voice instructor—an older woman with sharp eyes and sharper words—looked at me with irritation and said loudly enough for the class to hear, “Why are you here? You sound… strange.” “Your voice is bad!”. “You will never make with that voice of yours”! Just like that. No cushion. No grace. No understanding of the wounds she was reopening. I stood there exposed, embarrassed, humiliated in front of strangers—all because I wanted to heal a part of myself. I wanted to find my voice. When she told me, “This voice lesson class may not be for you,” something inside me cracked. Not loudly. Quietly. Like a hairline fracture in a bone that’s already been bruised. I gathered my things and walked out as calmly as I could, but inside I felt small again. Unwanted. Misplaced. But God doesn’t leave you wounded without sending a witness. As I walked out, a young man I barely knew shouted from the back of the class. “I like her voice,” he said. “Ain’t nothing wrong with it.” Little did I know he would one day resonate the sentiments of my radio listeners. He didn’t know it, but those eight words kept me from collapsing into old lies about not being enough. Not having a voice. He spoke life into a girl who had spent most of her life being silenced. It was the gentlest rescue I didn’t know I needed. I dropped the voice class. But I didn’t drop my voice.
— 31 — Instead, I redirected. Every morning at 6 a.m., I’d hear the campus radio station broadcasting the news. There was a woman—Janelle—whose voice filled the room with clarity and calm. She wasn’t loud. She wasn’t performative. She was steady. Present. Something in her delivery felt familiar to me, as if I had known her long before I stepped foot on that campus. And then, one day, I heard she was leaving. No one wanted the early morning shift. Nobody wanted to get up at four in the morning to pull AP Wire stories, type scripts, and deliver news when most of the campus was still asleep. But I did. I didn’t know it then, but God had positioned my rejection as redirection. The door that shut in the choir room opened a blessing in the control room. When I walked into KGRM for the first time, the studio felt like home—the kind where you don’t have to pretend to be okay. The dim lights. The hum of equipment. The microphone waiting patiently for me to speak. That mic didn’t judge me. Didn’t ask why I was there. Didn’t tell me my voice was strange. It simply said, “When you’re ready, I’m listening.” The first time I delivered the news live, my hands shook. Not from fear—fear I understood. It was from something deeper than fear. Purpose. Destiny. Recognition. Something in me whispered, “This is home.” Working mornings at KGRM transformed me in ways I can still feel today. The early hours taught me discipline. The silence of dawn taught me presence. The microphone taught me to connect without seeing faces. And as I read stories to a city of still-sleeping
— 32 — students, I found my power—not in singing like I once dreamed, but in speaking. My voice wasn’t trained. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t theatrical. But it was mine. And it was enough. College life moved fast. Between classes, assignments, friendships, heartbreaks, and the sweet intoxication of young adulthood, I realized something important: I wasn’t just learning communication—I was becoming it. The girl who once translated her mother’s emotions was now translating the world to a campus. The girl who once stayed quiet to keep the peace was now speaking loudly, clearly, confidently on the airwaves. And I fell in love. Not just with radio. But with being alive. With being free. With being a young woman who no longer carried the world on her back. Grambling became the first place I breathed without checking the air for danger. It was where I learned to be soft again. To laugh. To date. To trust. To flirt. To imagine a future that wasn’t built on survival but on possibility. Grambling was the first place I realized I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t strange. I wasn’t too quiet or too sensitive or too responsible. I was gifted. And my voice—my untrained, unpolished, unplanned voice— wasn’t a flaw. It was a calling. Nina Says:
— 33 — To every young adult fighting the weight of responsibility while trying to chase a dream, hear me when I say this: your path won’t always look like the path of others. Sometimes your gift won’t be recognized in the room you thought it belonged in. Sometimes people in authority will speak death over talents they were never meant to evaluate. Sometimes your purpose won’t announce itself gently—it will push you through the side door of life until you find where you’re meant to stand. Do not let rejection convince you that you are unworthy. Do not let criticism bury a gift God gave you. Do not let the weight of family expectations silence your calling. You are becoming someone your younger self prayed for— someone brave enough to step out, someone strong enough to rise, someone wise enough to know which voices matter and which ones were never meant for your ears in the first place. Your voice—even untrained—has a place. And when you find it, baby, the world will shift. This is Nina… don’t change the station. We’re headed into Chapter Five next.
— 34 — PART II THE RISE OF THE VOICE
— 35 — CHAPTER — 05 — THE WORKING VOICE: Becoming the Sound of Shreveport Playlist: En Vogue “Don’t Let Go” This is Nina… and I am on the air. You never truly know the moment your life’s purpose begins. There’s no glitter. No drumroll. No angel stepping out of a cloud to announce, This is your calling, baby—walk this way. Sometimes purpose comes quietly. Sometimes it slides in through the side door. And sometimes it starts with nothing more than a
— 36 — microphone, a stack of music logs, and a young woman trying to steady her breath before pressing the “ON AIR” button. I didn’t step into radio thinking I would become a voice people grew up with. I stepped into it because it felt like the only place my voice could finally breathe. By the time radio found me, I had already lived several lifetimes — caregiver, survivor, protector, listener. Radio didn’t make me strong; it recognized the strength that was already there. When I walked into my first station, I didn’t come with ego or expectations. I came with curiosity, humility, and a hunger to learn how sound could become connection. Those early years were nothing short of demanding. I worked when others slept. I learned how to shut stations down at midnight, lock doors, turn off transmitters, then catch a short nap before returning at four in the morning to turn another station back on. I carried keys, schedules, logs, responsibility. I learned how to move through studios quietly, efficiently, professionally. Radio taught me discipline — not the glamorous kind, but the kind that shows up when nobody is watching. At Grambling, at KGRM, at the City of Ruston stations, I did everything. I read news at four a.m., managed public affairs, tracked hours, distributed checks, learned equipment, fixed what broke, and filled gaps without being asked. I didn’t complain. I didn’t posture. I didn’t demand attention. I just worked. And slowly, the voice people once dismissed began to settle into something unmistakable — steady, warm, trustworthy. Radio felt like home because it required listening before speaking. It required presence. It required patience. It required understanding how people feel without seeing their faces. Those skills weren’t taught to me in training — they were learned in childhood. Radio didn’t change who I was; it gave me a place to use who I already was.
— 37 — But the truth is, loving radio didn’t mean radio always loved me back. The early environments were male-dominated, unfiltered, and often careless with boundaries. There were times when power outages plunged buildings into darkness and conversations shifted into places they never should have gone. Men talked — openly, crudely, without shame — about women’s bodies, about sex, about what they wanted to do, about who they wanted to do it with. They spoke as if I wasn’t there. Or worse, as if I was there for their entertainment. They never touched me. But words have weight. And environments matter. There were nights when the station was dark except for emergency lights, when candles and blacklights replaced professionalism, when the talk became lewd and degrading. I learned quickly that sometimes safety meant distance. I moved myself into another studio — one I didn’t even work for — because being alone in silence felt safer than being surrounded by men who had forgotten decency. When the lights came back on, I did what I had always done. I returned to my station. I calibrated equipment. I cleaned up. I took out trash. I made sure systems were right. I finished my responsibilities. Because that’s what professionalism looked like to me — even when the environment failed to protect it. I eventually reported what happened. I did what we are told to do. And the response was simple, dismissive, and devastating: “If you want to be in radio, you’re just going to have to get used to it.” That sentence stayed with me longer than any shift ever did.
— 38 — I understood then that the industry expected women — especially Black women — to grow “thick skin” instead of being offered basic respect. I understood that silence was safer than speaking. I understood that survival sometimes meant walking away quietly rather than staying and being broken publicly. So I finished my work. I made sure everyone was paid. I did my job to the very end. And then I left — without a scene, without a statement, without returning calls. I waited tables for a while. I regrouped. I healed enough to keep going. And here’s the part people don’t expect: radio didn’t reject me. Radio found me again. Because when a voice is meant to be heard, it will find its place. Before the city ever knew my name, before listeners learned the sound of my laugh or the warmth in my tone, before anyone called me the Queen of the Midday, I was just a woman learning how to stand inside her own voice. Radio didn’t arrive in my life as a dream I chased—it arrived as a door that quietly opened and said, come see who you are when the world is listening. I didn’t know then that everything I had survived before that moment had been preparing me for what was to come. My early days in radio were built on discipline, not glamour. I worked hours most people never see. Midnight sign-offs. Four a.m. wake-ups. Long corridors with humming equipment and blinking lights. I learned how to physically shut stations down at night, how to lock doors, how to log hours, how to troubleshoot when something went wrong. I learned how to sit in silence and wait, how to listen before speaking, how to move with purpose in rooms where nobody was applauding. Radio taught me structure—but it also revealed something deeper. It showed me that my voice didn’t need permission to exist. It only needed consistency.
— 39 — I worked at multiple stations, sometimes back-to-back, sometimes overlapping. I read news at four in the morning, managed public affairs, handled paperwork, tracked schedules, distributed paychecks, trained when needed, and filled gaps without complaint. I didn’t come in loud. I didn’t come in demanding attention. I came in ready. Ready to learn. Ready to work. Ready to carry my weight. And slowly, something shifted. The voice people once dismissed as “different” began to sound familiar. Trustworthy. Grounded. Steady. Radio felt natural to me because I had been listening my whole life. I had listened to moods before words. I had learned how to read silence before sound. I had learned how to adjust myself to environments long before I ever stepped into a studio. The microphone didn’t create those skills—it amplified them. It gave me a place where sensitivity wasn’t weakness and awareness was an asset. But loving radio did not mean radio was always safe. The early radio environments were dominated by men who didn’t always understand—or respect—the presence of a woman who worked hard, spoke clearly, and carried herself with quiet authority. There were moments when professionalism dissolved the minute power flickered or lights went out. During outages, when buildings went dark and emergency lights barely held the space together, conversations changed. The jokes became crude. The language became careless. The respect disappeared. They talked. They didn’t touch me. But words can wound just as deeply. There were nights when men spoke openly about women’s bodies, about sex, about what they wanted to do and to whom—sometimes
— 40 — even mentioning me as if I weren’t in the room. I learned very quickly that being present didn’t always mean being protected. And in those moments, I made decisions rooted in survival. I moved myself to other studios. Other spaces. Other rooms. Being alone in silence felt safer than being surrounded by voices that forgot my humanity. When the lights came back on, I did what I always did. I returned to my responsibilities. I calibrated equipment. I cleaned up. I made sure the station was running as it should. I took out trash. I closed logs. I finished my work. Because professionalism was the one thing nobody could take from me. Eventually, I told management what had happened. I did what we’re taught to do—what we’re told is right. And the response I received was simple and devastating in its honesty: “If you want to be in radio, you’re just going to have to get used to it.” That sentence followed me for years. It taught me that silence was often safer than truth. That endurance was expected, not admired. That women—especially Black women—were expected to adapt rather than be protected. I understood then that this industry would take as much as you were willing to give, and then ask for more. So I made a decision. Not loudly. Not dramatically. I finished my duties. I made sure everyone was paid. I double-checked schedules. I closed out my responsibilities with care. And then I left. I didn’t argue. I didn’t announce it. I simply walked away and chose peace over permission. I waited tables for a while. I rested. I listened to myself again. And what I learned in that quiet season was this: a voice meant for purpose will always find its way back to sound.
— 41 — Radio wasn’t finished with me. And I wasn’t finished with radio. Walking away from radio didn’t feel like failure—it felt like preservation. I didn’t leave because I lacked talent or discipline or passion. I left because my spirit needed air. I needed to remember who I was when I wasn’t bracing myself. Waiting tables humbled me in a way that radio never could. There was something grounding about honest labor, about conversations that didn’t require a microphone, about smiles that weren’t measured by ratings or performance. And yet, even in that season, radio never left my body. I still listened differently. I still noticed transitions. I still felt the rhythm of sound. Purpose doesn’t disappear just because you step away from it—it waits. When radio called me back, it didn’t arrive with apologies or promises. It arrived with opportunity. A chance. A “we heard you.” I didn’t rush back blindly. I returned wiser. More guarded. More intentional. I understood now that loving an industry doesn’t mean trusting it with your whole heart. It means showing up with discernment. I came back knowing that my voice was valuable— but that I was more valuable than any job. Those early return years taught me how to work without losing myself. I learned how to speak clearly without oversharing. How to be warm without being available to everyone. How to mentor without absorbing responsibility that wasn’t mine. I learned that professionalism could be armor when worn properly. And I learned that silence, when chosen, could be power—not submission. There is a difference between being quiet because you are afraid and being quiet because you are aware. I became the latter. As my career progressed, I moved through stations and cities, absorbing lessons everywhere I went. I learned how politics move
— 42 — inside radio. How decisions are made in rooms you’re not invited into. How contracts speak louder than loyalty. How women are often expected to carry emotional labor without credit. How Black women are praised for being “strong” but punished when they ask for protection. I saw it all—and I filed it away, not with bitterness, but with clarity. When I finally landed in Shreveport, something felt different. Familiar. Grounded. Like a place that understood rhythm and resilience. This city didn’t need me to be louder—it needed me to be real. I wasn’t asked to perform joy; I was allowed to be joy. I wasn’t required to shrink my softness or harden my edges. The city met me where I was, and in return, I gave it my best. But don’t mistake warmth for ease. Even as my presence grew, the demands grew with it. Radio is not just airtime—it’s preparation, meetings, appearances, emergencies, mentoring, filling gaps, smoothing tensions, managing egos, and being “on” even when your personal life is unraveling. I became known as dependable. Reliable. The one who could handle it. And with that reputation came weight. I was trusted because I never dropped the ball. But I was also tested because I never dropped the ball. There were moments when my boundaries were questioned—not physically crossed, but emotionally tested. Conversations that lingered too long. Expectations that stretched too far. Assumptions that I would always absorb discomfort to keep peace. And every time, I made choices informed by experience. I redirected. I documented. I distanced. I protected myself quietly. That is how survival evolves into strategy.
— 43 — I did not become hardened. I became discerning. I didn’t lose my kindness. I learned where to place it. And as my voice grew stronger on air, my inner voice grew clearer off it. I understood that longevity in this industry required more than talent—it required self-respect. And slowly, without chasing it, my voice became something the city relied on. Listeners didn’t just tune in for music. They tuned in for familiarity. For reassurance. For the feeling that someone was steady when life wasn’t. I spoke to people driving to work exhausted, sitting in hospital parking lots, cleaning homes, grieving losses, celebrating wins. I became part of routines I would never see but always feel. That responsibility was sacred to me. Because I knew what it meant to need a voice. Radio gave me a platform—but life gave me perspective. Every challenge I faced before the mic made me better behind it. Every uncomfortable moment taught me what not to pass down to the next generation. Every time I chose dignity over reaction, I was modeling something bigger than myself. By the time people started calling me “Queen,” I understood something deeply: Crowns are not given. They are carried. Quietly. Daily. With integrity. And I was just getting started.
— 44 — By the time my voice began to feel familiar across Shreveport, I understood something that could not be taught in any training manual: longevity is not built on talent alone. It is built on character. On restraint. On the quiet discipline of knowing when to speak and when to hold back. On learning how to protect yourself without losing your softness. On choosing dignity even when you could choose anger. Every experience I carried into that studio— every early morning, every late night, every uncomfortable moment I survived—shaped how I showed up on the air. I wasn’t just talking to listeners; I was listening for them. Listening to what wasn’t being said. Listening for what people needed but didn’t know how to ask for. As my presence grew, so did my responsibility. I became the voice people trusted in moments both ordinary and heavy. They tuned in while commuting to jobs that wore them down. They listened while sitting alone in apartments that felt too quiet. They kept the radio on while cooking, cleaning, grieving, celebrating, and surviving. And I took that trust seriously. I understood that when someone lets you into their routine, their car, their home, their day—you owe them consistency, honesty, and care. The working voice I developed was not flashy. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t shout for attention. It was steady. Calm. Grounded. It carried warmth without overexposure and confidence without arrogance. That was intentional. I had learned what happens when boundaries are blurred, when environments become careless, when silence is mistaken for consent. So I chose a voice that felt safe. A voice that didn’t demand anything from the listener except presence. A voice that didn’t perform strength but modeled it quietly. Shreveport responded to that.
— 45 — The city didn’t ask me to be anything other than myself. It didn’t require me to harden or exaggerate. It allowed me to grow at my own pace, to deepen rather than broaden, to become familiar rather than famous. I found myself becoming part of people’s lives in ways I could never measure—recognized by tone before face, greeted by laughter before name. And slowly, the place I had walked into as just another station became home. But home doesn’t mean easy. There were still moments that tested me. Moments when expectations pushed too far. Moments when being dependable meant being assumed. Moments when my silence was read as agreement instead of professionalism. Each time, I made a choice. Not to explode. Not to retreat. But to navigate with intention. To place myself where respect lived. To continue working without allowing myself to be diminished. That is how a working voice becomes a leading voice. I didn’t become “Queen of the Midday” overnight. I earned that title the way most women earn anything of value—over time, through consistency, through resilience, through showing up even when no one was clapping. The crown wasn’t placed on my head by a company. It was placed there by listeners who trusted me with their time and their hearts. By a city that recognized steadiness as strength. By people who felt less alone because they heard a voice that didn’t rush past their pain. And I carried that crown with care. Because I knew how easily a voice could be taken away. I had seen how quickly environments could turn careless. I had lived through moments when words alone made me feel unsafe. So I treated my platform with reverence. I used it to uplift rather than exploit. To
— 46 — connect rather than dominate. To remind people—quietly—that they mattered. This chapter of my life taught me something I still carry: work is not just what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s how you treat people when no one is watching. It’s how you protect yourself while still showing compassion. It’s how you turn survival into service without sacrificing your soul. By the end of this season, I was no longer just working in radio. I was working through it—using everything I had learned to build something lasting. Something honest. Something rooted. My voice had found its footing. And it was ready for more. After Grambling shaped me, life didn’t give me time to sit and analyze the experience. I moved straight into the next chapter, and that chapter was radio. Real radio. Not the campus station. Not the internships. The real professional world where voices become companions, where music becomes someone’s medicine, and where you learn that even when you’re talking to thousands of people, it must sound like a conversation with one. When I walked into my first commercial station—KMJJ—I wasn’t anybody’s Queen of the Midday. I wasn’t seasoned. I wasn’t confident. I was just a girl with a voice someone once called “weird,” hoping she wouldn’t mess up the 4 a.m. shift. I didn’t know how to run the boards yet. I didn’t know the difference between the public file and the commercial logs. I didn’t know that one day I’d be the woman that record labels called first when their artists came to town. What I did know was that I was willing to learn. And I believed— deep down in some place I hadn’t learned how to articulate yet—
— 47 — that my voice had a place in the world, even if nobody else saw it at the time. Those early years were long, quiet, humbling, and holy all at once. I learned to cue records while half-asleep. I learned the rhythm of timing breaks so perfectly that I could “hit the post” without thinking. I learned the beauty of connecting with a city through sound alone. I learned that sometimes radio feels like flying and sometimes it feels like carrying a whole community on your back. But I kept showing up. I always showed up. People think radio is entertainment. But for me, radio was—and still is—ministry. Not the kind behind a pulpit. The kind behind the wounds we don’t say out loud. The kind that reaches people in their loneliness. Their joy. Their grief. Their Friday nights and their Sunday mornings. The kind where you don’t just talk—you carry people through the hours of their lives. I used to pray before every shift. God, let me be what somebody needs today. That prayer carried me through every long day, every double shift, every holiday I spent in the studio while the rest of the world was at home with their families. Radio became the family I didn’t always have. The listeners became the voices that held me steady when my own life felt unsteady. Talking to a city is an art. To make thousands feel like one person. To know when the community needs laughter and when it needs silence. To know when to uplift and when to honor grief. To know that all a grandmother in Queensborough wanted to hear was some Down-Home Blues all night long to remember her husband by. To know when a young mother in Allendale needed to hear her 90’s R & B jams. To know that a brother at the barber shop in Minden needed to hear a Southern Soul Classic during a quick break. To
— 48 — know when the streets were tense, when the mood was heavy, when the people were tired. Radio taught me how to hear beyond sound. And Shreveport taught me how to love beyond words. As the years passed, this city pulled me closer. People started recognizing my voice in grocery stores and at the gas station. They’d stop me at the fair, at community events, at high school homecomings, at the boardwalk, at every corner of the Ark-La-Tex. And every time, someone would say, “Nina, girl… you got me through some moments.” And every time, my spirit felt honored. The celebrities came too—R&B singers, comedians, actors, hip- hop icons, soul legends. I met them all. Some were humble. Some were hilarious. Some were complicated. Some became friends. But none of them meant more to me than the people listening at home. Fame walked in and out of those studio doors, but the community stayed. The community loved me long before any celebrity did, and long after they left town. I’ll let you in on a secret. My biggest “celebrity moment” was never sitting across from a superstar or interviewing someone the world calls famous. No, my greatest moment came from a man most people will never know by name — but I knew him by his voice. He was a brother who called into my show every single day, not for attention, not for entertainment, but because the sound of connection kept him going. We bonded instantly. You could feel his spirit through the phone — warm, gentle, fighting, holding on. When he told me he had cancer and that the treatments were getting harder, something in my chest shifted. He didn’t ask for pity. He didn’t even ask for prayer. He asked for one thing — to feel joy while he still could. His wish was simple: front row tickets to his favorite show, one more night where illness didn’t define him, one more moment where life didn’t hurt. And baby, God
— 49 — worked it out. I made sure he got those tickets. When he walked into that venue, smiling from ear to ear, you would’ve thought the whole world had paused just to celebrate him. Afterward, when he saw me, he reached for my hand with the softest, weakest grip — but the strongest spirit — and whispered, “Nina… you helped me get through my most difficult time.” In that moment, I understood that my voice was never just about radio. It was ministry, it was comfort, it was purpose. A few weeks later, he passed away. And let me tell you… I grieved that man the way you grieve a family member. Because some listeners don’t stay on the other side of the speaker — they move into your heart, they become part of your story, they become part of your why. He did. And every time I turn on that mic, I still carry him with me. Because love lives on airwaves too. Radio didn’t just shape my career. It shaped my character. It taught me resilience. It taught me humility. It taught me how to stand tall in spaces where I wasn’t seen as equal. It taught me to find joy even when the paycheck didn’t match the workload. I’ve worn more hats than I can count—public affairs director, promotions assistant, on-air personality, producer, programmer, mentor, counselor, event host, unofficial community auntie. I’ve done the work of five people for the salary of one. And I did it because I loved the people. I didn’t stay in radio for the money. I stayed because my voice belonged to this city before I even knew what that meant. Shreveport is the one place I never had to pretend. This city let me laugh. This city let me cry on-air about Hurricane Katrina. About Trayvon. About COVID. About the losses we all felt together. This city crowned me Queen of the Midday long before corporate ever noticed what I had built. And when the city names you… baby, that crown can’t be stolen.
— 50 — Nina Says: To everyone reading this—especially my Black women, my young dreamers, my overworked, overlooked, and underpaid warriors—I need you to hear this from the depths of my soul: Your worth is not measured by your title. Your value is not defined by your paycheck. Your greatness is not determined by who recognizes it. Show up anyway. Grow anyway. Shine anyway. There will be people who underestimate you because of your voice, your gender, your skin, your softness, your confidence, your power. Let them talk. Let them doubt. Let them whisper. Then let your consistency be the sermon that answers every question. And if you ever feel invisible, remember this: Somebody out there needs what only you can give. Somebody’s healing is tied to your presence. Somebody’s strength rises because you keep showing up. Your purpose is louder than your fear. Your voice is bigger than your setbacks. And your story is not done—not by a long shot. This is Nina… your girl is signing off until the next chapter. Stay tuned, baby. The best is still unfolding.
— 51 — CHAPTER — 06 — THE SHAKEN VOICE: What She Endured And Rose Above Playlist: Lauryn Hill – “Ex-Factor” This is Nina… and I am on the air. There are chapters in a woman’s life that are difficult to speak aloud. Not because she is ashamed, but because saying them out loud changes the air around her. It forces her to confront moments she has carried silently for years—moments that shaped her, frightened her, and strengthened her in ways only the heart can
— 52 — understand. This is one of those chapters. People imagine radio as bright lights, celebrity encounters, good music, and endless joy. And yes, it can be all of that. But the truth is more complicated. I gave my whole heart to this industry, yet the industry didn’t always know what to do with a Black woman who worked harder than she complained, who led without boasting, who carried an entire station on her shoulders without ever asking for applause. When you are that woman, people depend on your light while pretending not to see it. They lean on your consistency while ignoring the cost of what it takes to maintain it. And sometimes, they mistake your kindness for agreement. They confuse your silence with safety. They believe your professionalism means you cannot be harmed. For decades, I worked long hours—often the last one in the building, the final voice echoing down quiet hallways. The station locked down tight after a certain hour, and once you were inside, there was no getting out. Not even the police could reach you without an access code. The intention was to protect equipment, but no one asked what it meant for the woman inside those walls late at night. Then came the night that broke something open in me. I had started noticing candy wrappers under my desk—small, strange clues that I brushed off at first. Maybe coworkers must be sneaking and pushing them under my desk by accident, I thought. But after several nights seeing more wrappers appear, something in me questioned it. Still, I kept working. That’s what I’d always done. Adjust. Continue. Push through. But one night, sitting alone in my office with the low hum of equipment around me, I looked up—and in my doorway stood a large raccoon. Wide-eyed, bold, staring at me like I was the one intruding in his building. It took me a second to process what I was seeing. Then fear ripped through me. I screamed in a way I did not know I could scream, slammed the door shut, locked myself inside,
— 53 — and backed into a corner, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. The station’s secure doors meant no one could get in not law enforcement, not security—no one. I was trapped, terrified, and suddenly aware that the place meant to protect me had me locked in with no way out. I tried calling 911—they couldn't access the building. I dialed coworker after coworker until someone finally answered. At first, my coworker thought I was playing. Who expects a call about a raccoon taking over the radio station? But once he heard the fear in my voice, he drove straight there. I remained locked in for hours until help arrived. When the coworker and a new security officer finally reached the door, I was relieved. They had given the security guard full access to watch over me at night. I didn’t notice immediately, but the security guard was someone who had sparked deep concern for my family years earlier—yet he now had full access to every room I worked in alone. The next morning, I contacted my program director. My voice was calm, but my hands were trembling. I explained, firmly but respectfully, that the guard could not remain assigned to our building. Not with that level of access. Not given his history stalking my family. My director asked why—really why—and in order to answer truthfully, I had to step into a memory I had buried for decades. I had to talk about something I had never planned to revisit: a violation from years before. Why did this fear exist? Why was my protection on the chopping block? The raccoon scare, It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t the kind of incident that makes headlines. But it was real. The guard was removed. But internally, something deeper began unraveling. But what most people never knew is that before the raccoon ever stepped into my doorway, I had already known the kind of fear that steals a woman’s breath. I had been assaulted traumatically in a women’s restroom in my younger years, screaming, but my voice
— 54 — was never heard. Later, I had my home and my peace violated by a coworker who crossed boundaries he had no right to touch. I screamed for him to stop, but my voice was not heard again. And years after that, I watched a security guard’s unwanted attention fall onto my close family member—another moment that stole my sense of safety and my voice. So, when I screamed that night, it wasn’t just because an animal startled me. It was a scream born from every moment my safety had been taken, every moment my voice had been pushed into silence. The fear that rose in my body felt familiar—too familiar—like the echo of old wounds resurfacing all at once. And when I finally had the courage to look deeper, I realized all of it traced back to the same truth: I had been the caretaker long before anyone ever cared for me. Because of that, I never expected protection. I only expected myself to endure—and endure—and endure. Several weeks later, I decided to call a therapist who had visited the radio station. Not because I was falling apart. But because the truth finally had room to breathe. Therapy cracked me open. Not painfully—honestly. The counselor asked a single question: “Nina, when did you learn to stay quiet to stay safe?” And with that one question, decades of secrets, silence, and survival began to shift. I saw patterns I never recognized before: my overworking, my people-pleasing, my instinct to protect others while neglecting myself, my fear of disappointing anyone, my inability to ask for help. Therapy didn’t erase the pain. But it gave me language for it. It gave me permission to stop blaming myself. It gave me a place where my voice mattered even when it trembled. One morning before sunrise, I sat alone in the studio, the control board glowing softly under my fingertips. In that quiet, I realized that the microphone was never the source of my power—it was merely the instrument through which my truth found its home. My voice wasn’t shaped by radio. My voice was shaped by everything I survived to get to radio. And suddenly, the building didn't feel
— 55 — like a threat anymore—not because it changed, but because I had changed inside it. I stayed in that building not out of fear, not out of habit, but because the listeners—the city—gave me something the workplace never could: unconditional connection. Every hug at a grocery store. Every “thank you” whispered in a hospital. Every “Nina, you got me through something you will never know.” Every smile from a stranger who recognized my voice before they recognized my face. That was my protection. That was my reason. That was my safety. Nina Says: To every woman who has worked in a place where she didn’t always feel safe— To every Black woman who has swallowed her discomfort just to keep her job— To every sister who has endured something silently because she feared being dismissed— Hear me clearly: What happened to you mattered. Your feelings are valid. Your story is real. Strength does not mean silence. Professionalism does not mean tolerance. Survival does not mean acceptance. We live in a world that praises our resilience but ignores the wounds that forced us to become resilient in the first place. Black women are expected to endure storms that would break others, and then return to work the next day as if lightning didn’t just strike us. That burden is not love. That burden is not strength. That burden is inherited trauma.
— 56 — To the Black men reading this— Stand for the women who have always stood for you. Protect us like your life depends on it, because our lives often do. Honor our vulnerability, not just our strength. Listen the first time. Believe the first time. Care the first time. And to every young woman stepping into a male-dominated field: Your voice is your boundary. Your truth is your armor. Your safety is non-negotiable. If something doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. You are allowed to walk away from any place that cannot protect you. RADIO SIGN-OFF This is Nina… signing off. Take a breath. Release the silence you’ve carried too long. And meet me in the next chapter— where the voice that once shook is learning to rise again. Stay tuned for Chapter Seven.
— 57 — CHA PTER — 07 — THE BREAKING VOICE: Love, Loss, and Motherhood Playlist: Deborah Cox “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” This is Nina… and I am on the air. There are chapters in a woman’s life that feel like both a beginning and an ending. Love can enter gently, like a soft chord played on a Sunday morning… and leave just as quietly. And in between those two moments, life forms itself around choices, sacrifices, and the
— 58 — weight of what we do not say. My story — the story of my first real love — has lived in the quiet corners of my spirit for years. Not because it was shameful, but because it changed me in ways I’m still learning to understand. He first fell in love with my voice. Isn’t that something? The same voice a choir instructor once pushed out of class… became the voice that reached him through the speakers long before he ever saw my face. He would call the radio station just to hear me say his name. Just to hear the tone, the warmth, the way my voice stretched across the wires and curled itself around the edges of his loneliness. I didn’t know it then, but he was listening between the notes — listening with intention. He was kind. Gentle. Book-smart. Steady. He saw me in a way I had never been seen before — not as a caretaker, not as someone’s daughter, not as the girl who grew up too fast — but as a woman deserving of love. Real love. The kind that shows up, stays present, and listens deeply. And when he said, “I love you,” I paused, not because I didn’t feel something, but because I didn’t know what love was supposed to feel like. Nobody had ever said it to me in a way that felt safe before. I was still learning that love didn’t have to be earned through sacrifice. We grew into each other naturally. We became inseparable without ever having a conversation about commitment. He was graduating, moving forward in life, planning careers and futures, and I was still balancing school, work, and a mother who needed more than I could ever articulate. I had one foot in womanhood and one foot stuck in the past, trying to make sure my mother didn’t fall apart if I wasn’t right beside her. Loving someone while carrying that kind of responsibility was like loving someone with one hand while holding the world together with the other.
— 59 — He wanted marriage. He wanted a home. He wanted a life we could build together. And I wanted… something different. Not because I didn’t love him, but because family responsibility doesn’t let you dream in straight lines. I couldn’t tell him that my mother’s illness still felt like quicksand. I couldn’t explain that I was still afraid to live too far away. And I certainly couldn’t tell him that doctors had whispered years earlier that having children might never be possible for me. How do you break a man’s heart while he’s planning a life with you? How do you say, “Choose someone who won’t cost you everything”? So I chose for him. One day, over the phone, with fear choking every syllable, I ended it. No explanation. No closure. Just a door shutting on a future I didn’t feel worthy of. He quit his job, left Arizona, and drove across the country to see me — not to beg, but to understand. And I… was gone. Not physically, but emotionally. I had convinced myself that removing myself from his life was protecting him. That sacrificing my happiness would give him the life he deserved. It took years — decades — to realize that I wasn’t rejecting him. I was rejecting the idea that I could be loved unconditionally. It wasn’t long before life pushed me into the arms of someone else — a husband I cared for deeply, a man I tried to build a home with. We married. We tried. We lived. And eventually, we broke. The marriage brought me children I adore more than breath, but it also brought heartbreak I wasn’t prepared for — the kind that teaches you that love isn’t always enough, and commitment isn’t always mutual. Motherhood, though… motherhood saved me. I was told that I could never have children. But God was in control. My three children became the quiet expansion of my heart. They taught me
— 60 — patience when I thought I had none left. They taught me joy in moments that were too small for anyone else to notice. They taught me that even when love between adults falls apart, love between a mother and her children doesn’t break — it bends, it stretches, it transforms, but it doesn’t break. Motherhood didn’t come into my life gently; it arrived like a calling I didn’t know I was answering. When I became a mother the first time, I was still young in the way only women who grow up too fast understand. Old where it hurt. Young where it mattered. I didn’t have a blueprint for softness, because softness wasn’t something I grew up with. But motherhood demanded it anyway. It demanded that I give what I had never consistently received— comfort, reassurance, presence, protection. And even in my fear, I made myself a promise: my children would never question whether they were loved. From the moment I held my babies, something inside me cracked open. Not delicately, not politely—but wide. All the emotions I had learned to keep contained for survival came rushing through at once. I didn’t always know how to parent perfectly, but I knew how to show up. I knew how to protect. I knew how to endure for someone else’s sake. And that became the foundation of my motherhood. As my family grew, so did the weight I carried. I worked long hours in radio, often bringing my children with me when there was no other choice. They slept on blankets on studio floors, on couches pushed against walls, under desks while music played and commercials rolled. I would look down at them—safe, trusting, unaware of how hard I was fighting—and think, This is why I don’t quit. But motherhood doesn’t just teach you strength. It teaches you fear.
— 61 — By the time I was pregnant with my son, I thought I understood pregnancy. I thought I knew how to manage the worry, how to push through the unknowns. I didn’t know that God was about to test my faith in a way that would silence everything but prayer. Around the five-month mark, I went in for what should have been a routine ultrasound. I went alone that day. Life had already begun shifting in quiet ways I didn’t yet recognize. The room was dim. The machine hummed. The technician moved carefully, then paused. She tried again. And again. Her voice softened, then disappeared altogether. Eventually, she left the room without explanation. When she returned, there was still no heartbeat. No one told me what to do. No one explained what came next. They simply told me my doctor would follow up and sent me home—leaving me alone with silence, shock, and unanswered questions. I walked out of that building carrying something heavier than fear. I carried uncertainty. Weeks passed. I didn’t feel movement. Appointments were delayed. Time stretched cruelly. And still, every night, my daughters talked to my belly. They sang. They laughed. They whispered love to a baby I didn’t know how to grieve yet. I let them. Even when my heart was terrified. At one point, exhaustion and old wounds crept in, and I caught myself believing something dangerous—that maybe I deserved the loss. That maybe this was punishment for being tired, for being divorced, for being human. That kind of thinking only visits when a woman has been strong for too long. But God wasn’t finished.
— 62 — At a later appointment, after I had braced myself for the worst, a sound filled the room. A rhythm. A heartbeat. Life—strong and insistent. My son had decided, on his own timing, that he was staying. That pregnancy revived. There is no other word for it but miracle. Around that same time, corporate changes disrupted my insurance. Suddenly, I was navigating pregnancy while paying medical expenses out of pocket, carrying motherhood, work, and uncertainty all at once. But something inside me had shifted. I had learned surrender. I had learned that control was never mine to begin with. I had learned that silence doesn’t mean absence— sometimes it means God is working quietly. That son—the one who scared me half to death before he ever took his first breath—grew into a steady presence in my life. Grounded. Kind. Strong. Watching him now, I understand something I couldn’t see then: his life was always meant to be a testimony. Motherhood didn’t just soften me. It forged me. And as I carried my children through life, I was also carrying wounds I didn’t yet know how to name—my mother’s illness, my father’s absence, relationships that didn’t hold, love that felt conditional. Still, my children became my compass. They grounded me. They reminded me why survival wasn’t enough—I had to live. By the time I reached the next season of my life, motherhood had already taught me the hardest lesson of all: love doesn’t remove fear—but it gives you the courage to face it anyway. And that courage would be tested again. If there is one place in my life where love never made me earn it, never asked me to explain myself, never punished me for being
— 63 — human, it was with my children. They loved me simply because I was theirs. No performance. No perfection. No conditions. And in that love, I found something I didn’t even know I was missing. My oldest daughter grew up watching me work, watching me juggle responsibilities, watching me show up even when I was tired. She saw my strength, but she also saw my tenderness. She saw the woman behind the microphone long before anyone else did. Today, she is married to her soulmate, living a beautiful, grounded life filled with partnership, laughter, and peace. When I look at her, I see the reward of every sacrifice I made. I see proof that stability can be built even when it wasn’t modeled perfectly. Her happiness is not accidental—it is the fruit of love, consistency, and faith. My youngest daughter carries a different kind of strength, one that mirrors my own in ways that humble me. She is a mother now, raising her children with courage, patience, and fierce advocacy. Her children—my grandchildren—live with us, and they have transformed my home into a place of constant motion and constant joy. Our days are shaped by routines, laughter, questions, hugs, and the kind of love that doesn’t ask for explanations. There is a special kind of healing that happens when you watch your child become a parent, and an even deeper kind when you get to help raise your grandchildren alongside her. Those babies light up when they see me. They run toward me with open arms. They climb into my lap when I read to them. They rest their heads on my shoulder without hesitation. They laugh freely, love loudly, and trust completely. Their joy has brightened my voice in ways I didn’t realize were possible. There is a warmth that enters my spirit when I hold them, a lightness that follows me into the studio, into the microphone, into the music. They remind me every day that love can be simple. That love can be safe. That love can be joyful without being fragile.
— 64 — My son—the one whose heartbeat once disappeared and returned—grew into a man whose steadiness brings me peace. He is grounded, thoughtful, kind, and dependable. Watching him navigate life with quiet strength reassures me that fear did not win. That uncertainty did not define him. That faith carried us both through something we didn’t fully understand at the time. He is a reminder that miracles don’t always arrive loudly—sometimes they grow into men who move through the world with integrity and calm. Together, my children became my teachers. They taught me how to receive love without suspicion. They taught me how to soften without breaking. They taught me how to be present without apologizing. They loved me on my best days and my worst days, through exhaustion, through uncertainty, through growth. When life felt heavy, they made it lighter. When my voice felt strained, they reminded me why it mattered. My grandchildren added a new layer to that love. They brought laughter into rooms that once felt quiet. They brought curiosity where routine once lived. They brought hope into moments I didn’t know needed it. Their presence has reshaped my home, my heart, and my sense of legacy. When they sit beside me while I read, when they hug me just because, when they call my name with excitement, something inside me heals a little more. Their joy has become part of my sound. Their love has become part of my tone. Motherhood did not just break me open—it rebuilt me. It gave me a reason to keep going when I wanted to rest. It gave me clarity when I felt lost. It gave me purpose when survival wasn’t enough. And it gave me love in its purest form—the kind that doesn’t disappear when you’re tired, uncertain, or afraid. Everything I am today—every word I speak, every lesson I carry, every ounce of compassion I bring into the studio—was shaped by
— 65 — being their mother. They are my greatest legacy. My living testimony. My daily reminder that love can grow even in imperfect soil. And when I speak into the microphone now, when my voice reaches across the airwaves, it carries them with it. It carries the laughter from my home. The warmth of small arms around my neck. The pride of watching my children build lives of their own. The peace of knowing that no matter what the world brings, I have already known the deepest kind of love. That love saved me. And it continues to shape everything that comes next. There are memories that live so deeply inside me they feel like muscle memory. The quiet hum of the station late at night. The glow of the board lights. The smell of coffee gone cold. And my children—my babies—sleeping wherever they could while I finished my work. Sometimes it was the floor with jackets folded into pillows. Sometimes it was a couch pushed against the wall. Sometimes it was under a desk, their shoes tucked neatly beside them. They never complained. They never asked why. They just waited. And that waiting was love. They grew up inside those walls with me. Not visiting—growing. They watched me cue records, handle emergencies, meet deadlines, laugh with listeners, comfort strangers through the airwaves, and still kneel down to check homework or brush hair before driving home. They saw what dedication looked like before they could spell the word. They learned responsibility before the world demanded it of them. They learned that community wasn’t just something you talked about—it was something you served. My children didn’t just attend community events with me—they worked them. They handed out flyers, packed boxes, helped with
— 66 — coat drives, toy giveaways, voter registration events, festivals, parades, and remotes. They watched me coordinate crowds, manage chaos, and still greet every person like family. They learned early that service is love in motion. That showing up matters. That when your community supports you, you give back with your whole heart. They watched how people responded to my voice—how strangers smiled when they heard my name, how elders hugged me, how kids waved, how men nodded in respect. They saw the responsibility that came with being trusted by a city. And they absorbed it. Not because I told them to—but because they lived it alongside me. Sometimes, after a long day, I’d look down and see them asleep at the station, worn out from a full day of school and service. And my heart would ache with gratitude and guilt all at once. Gratitude that they were patient. Guilt that my work demanded so much of them. But even in that tension, I knew something sacred was happening. They weren’t being neglected—they were being included. They weren’t being left behind—they were being shaped. They grew with me as I grew into myself. As my voice found its confidence, so did they. As my responsibilities increased, so did their understanding. As my purpose became clearer, they stepped into theirs. My legacy didn’t wait until retirement—it was being formed in real time, in real rooms, on real nights, with real children watching. Today, when I look at them, I see the values they carry effortlessly. Work ethic. Compassion. Accountability. Presence. Faith. They are Magic—not because of what I did perfectly, but because they witnessed perseverance firsthand. They saw me tired but faithful. Overworked but committed. Exhausted but loving. And they
— 67 — learned that purpose doesn’t come from ease—it comes from showing up anyway. My voice has always carried love—but my children gave it direction. They gave it meaning beyond music. They gave it roots. Every time I spoke encouragement on the air, it was because I had learned how to encourage at home. Every time I spoke hope, it was because I practiced it with them first. They are the reason my voice never became hollow. They filled it with life. Even now, when I walk into the studio, I carry them with me. Their laughter lives in my tone. Their patience lives in my pauses. Their resilience lives in my consistency. They are my greatest listeners— even when they aren’t tuned in. They are my proof that legacy is not what you leave behind—it’s what walks beside you. My children are not just part of my story. They are the story continuing. And when people say my voice sounds warm, steady, comforting— what they’re really hearing is love raised in real time. That is why I keep going. That is why the exhaustion never won. That is why my voice still matters. Because my children grew up watching purpose—and now they carry it forward. And that… And then came my father — a man who drifted in and out of my life like an unfinished song. I saw him once as a little girl, riding the bike he bought me. I remember how frustrated he became when I couldn’t learn fast enough. How the moment spiraled. How that
— 68 — bike became a symbol of love that didn’t quite land where it needed to. Years passed in silence. Decades. Then suddenly, adulthood arrived and brought him back into my life in small, careful ways. He didn’t know the weight of the years we lost. He didn’t know how many times I wondered why I wasn’t enough for him to stay. And even when he finally began saying “I’m proud of you,” part of me was still that little girl staring at a bicycle she didn’t know how to ride. But healing is a slow dance. When he was diagnosed with cancer, something shifted. The space between us softened. I felt compassion rise in me, a strange tenderness for a father who couldn’t love me the way little Nina needed — but who was trying now. And trying counts. Trying matters. Trying heals parts of you effort by effort. Love, loss, motherhood, healing — none of it came gently. But all of it shaped the woman who sits behind this microphone today. Every heartbreak gave me a deeper compassion for my listeners. Every goodbye taught me the sacredness of connection. Every child I raised taught me endurance. Every wound from my past taught me to embrace the present. And every version of love — the one I lost, the one I tried to build, the love I gave my children, the love my father now offers — every single one carved a new resonance in my voice. When you hear me on the air, you’re hearing a woman who has been broken, rebuilt, stretched, refined, and restored. You’re hearing a woman who learned how to love by learning how to stay alive. You’re hearing a woman who still believes in love — not fairytale love, but the kind you grow into with honesty and healing.
— 69 — Love didn’t break me. It shaped me. And it taught me that even when the heart cracks, the voice remains. Nina Says: To all my listeners… my community… my Black families… my sisters and brothers navigating love and loss — come close. We don’t talk enough about what responsibility does to the heart. We don’t talk enough about how many young Black women grow up carrying their households while trying to learn how to carry themselves. We don’t talk enough about the Black men who never received the emotional tools to show up for the people they love. We don’t talk enough about how childhood wounds become adult patterns — affecting who we choose, why we stay, why we leave, and how we love. Love inside the Black community is powerful. But it is also layered with: generational trauma unspoken expectations absent parents exhausted mothers overburdened daughters sons who weren’t taught to express softness and families who were never taught to say “I’m sorry”
— 70 — If you are healing — be patient with yourself. If you are loving — love with honesty, not fear. If you are hurting — know that nothing you survived makes you unworthy. If you are rebuilding — take your time. If you are finding God again — let Him meet you where you are. And to the men reading this: Your presence matters more than you know. Your consistency is a form of love. Your accountability is a form of protection. Your vulnerability is a form of leadership. Your healing is necessary for our healing. And to the women: You are allowed to choose yourself. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to break cycles your mother could not. You are allowed to be loved without sacrificing your soul. Love is never wasted. Even the love that ended. Even the love that broke you. Even the love you had to walk away from. Every chapter grows you — if you let it. This is Nina Montgomery… signing off for tonight. But keep your dial right where it is. Healing is a frequency. And Chapter Eight is up next. Stay tuned.
— 71 — CHAPTER — 08 — THE EXHAUSTED VOICE: Seven Days A Week Playlist: Anita Baker – “I Apologize” This is Nina… and I am on the air. If you could see the life that happens on the other side of this microphone, you’d hear my voice differently. You’d hear the mornings that come too early, the nights that end too late, the weeks that run together, the body that doesn’t always keep up with the schedule. You’d hear the woman behind the sound—the mother, the grandmother, the daughter, the caregiver, the coworker, the friend, the neighbor. You’d hear the strength and the
— 72 — strain side by side. Because the truth is, my voice can be strong and tired at the same time. My heart can be full and heavy at the same time. I can show up shining for you even when I haven’t slept more than a couple hours in days. My life has never been ordinary. At home or at work. Not in the quiet hours when the city is asleep and I’m still moving—packing lunches, making lists, checking on my mother, calming grandchildren after a rough night—nor in the hours when the “On Air” light glows red and my voice spills over Shreveport like sunlight. My voice has become a constant for a lot of people: my children when they were little, my grandbabies now, my mother when her mind slips away from her, and my listeners who count on me to be there—no matter what. And through all of it—every sunrise alarm and past-midnight sign- off—I kept moving. Because that’s what I knew. Because rest felt like a luxury I hadn’t earned. Because the city expected me. Because my family needed me. Because, to be honest, I didn’t know how not to show up. Somewhere along the way, “seven days a week” stopped being a phrase and became a lifestyle. Thirty-seven years. Week after week. Holiday after holiday. Heatwaves, storms, festivals, protests, funerals, toy drives, family days, concerts, parades, pandemics. And I was there. I was always there. People think radio is just talking and playing songs. They imagine four cute hours on the mic and then home for the day. Lord, if only they knew. They don’t see the meetings, the sales calls, the community partnerships, the scripts, the commercial reads, the
— 73 — voice tracks, the last-minute remotes, the technical emergencies, the nights you’re still in the studio at midnight because something crashed and you can’t leave dead air on your station. They don’t see how often you push your own body to the back of the line so you can keep a city inspired, informed, and uplifted. I became the woman who didn’t say no. The one who filled in. The one who stayed late. The one who showed up early. The one who trained the new people. The one who answered the phone when nobody else did. The one who knew how everything worked… and what would break if she wasn’t there. And I’m not going to lie—sometimes that made me feel powerful. It felt good to know they trusted me, that the listeners counted on me, that my presence mattered. But other times, it made me feel invisible. Because once people get used to you always being there, they stop noticing what it costs you to keep showing up. They stop asking if you’re okay. They just panic the day you’re not. I got sick more than once. Not just a cold, not just a little something you sleep off. I mean the kind of sick that knocks the wind out of you. The kind of sick that is your body’s way of saying, “Sit down or I will sit you down.” And every time, it felt like the job was pulling at me even from the hospital bed. I remember one Sunday like it was yesterday. Nothing special on the calendar. My kids were still young, and I was worn down after a long week—remote broadcasts, regular shifts, late-night commercials, early-morning responsibilities, church, school programs, and checking in on my mama. My body felt heavy, like I had been carrying a storm inside my bones. My kids had their
— 74 — hearts set on going to the fair before it left town. I had promised them. And a promise is something I don’t break easily. A young DJ I knew—a good young man with a kind spirit— offered to drive us. He saw how tired I was, but he didn’t press. He just stepped in where he could. At the fair, my babies were laughing, running, stretching their hands up for rides, sugar all over their faces from cotton candy, the sound of their joy cutting through the fog in my body. I smiled through the pain, one child’s hand in each of mine, praying my legs would hold up just a little longer. Later that night, after we got home and I finally let myself sit down, the pain hit hard. My body folded. I ended up in the hospital with an infection that had spread through my whole system. I hadn’t even recognized the signs. I thought it was just fatigue. Just one more week. Just one more shift. Just one more event. But do you know what hurt more than the IV in my arm or the diagnosis on the chart? The phone call. The station wanted to know when I was coming back. Not “How are you feeling, Nina?” Not “Do you need anything?” Not “We’ve got you, focus on healing.” Just, “When can you get back on the air?” In that moment, lying in a hospital bed, still hooked up to lines and monitors, I realized something heavy: when a Black woman works too hard for too long, people stop seeing her as a person and start seeing her as a resource. A machine. A guarantee.
— 75 — But I am not a machine. I am a woman with a history and a body and a breaking point. That was one hospital stay. There were others. Times when stress, sleeplessness, and the pressure of being “the strong one” took a toll. Times when I ended up under bright lights again, doctors shaking their heads, my body keeping count of all the times I ignored its plea for rest. And almost every time, before I was fully well, someone found a way to ask—not “Are you okay?”—but “Can you come back?” Still… every time I healed enough to stand, I went right back to that microphone. Because as much as the job drained me, the listeners filled me. There were nights I walked through that quiet building and felt the ghosts of every version of myself who had worked there. The young Nina hustling between shifts and kids. The mid-career Nina, staying late to produce someone else’s show, writing liners, creating bits, picking songs that fit the moment. The older Nina, carrying more life on her shoulders, but still leaning into the mic like it was an old friend. Those walls hold my DNA. My laughter. My tears. My secrets. My prayers. My sweat. My kids grew up in those halls. They’ve slept under consoles, on couches, wrapped in blankets on the floor. They’ve watched me run the board with one hand while holding a baby with the other. They’ve seen me crack the mic to sound smooth and calm while they were coloring at my feet. They’ve helped pass out flyers at remotes, carried boxes at toy drives, handed out water at family fun days, and sat in the crowd while I was on stage hosting community events like it was the most normal thing in the world. People see the Queen of the Midday now, but they didn’t see the young mother with three kids, trying to stretch one salary across
— 76 — rent, bills, food, school clothes, gas, and everything else. They didn’t see the nights I went home and cried in the car before going inside to be “Mama” again. They didn’t see the days I pushed my way through broadcasts with a fever, a migraine, or a heart heavy from something nobody knew about. But every day, no matter how tired I was, I walked into that studio, took a breath, and said, “This is Nina… and I am on the air.” Those words pulled me back to myself. They reminded me that I had purpose. Outside that booth, life was heavy. Family depending on me. There were bills to pay. Groceries to buy. Appointments to juggle. Crises to handle. Generations to hold steady. I wasn’t just working a job—I was supporting three generations at once. People say, “Nina, you work too much.” I always answer, “It’s not just work. It’s survival. It’s love. It’s what God put in my hands.” But survival has a cost. There were days I felt so empty that even my reflection looked tired. Days when I walked through my own house and felt like a guest, because I was always heading in or heading out, never really landing. Days when my body ached from my shoulder blades down to my feet, and my spirit felt even heavier. Days when I’d sit on the edge of my bed and wonder, quietly, “If I stopped… would everything fall apart?” And then one of my grandbabies would run into the room, laughing. Or curl into my lap, humming contentedly. Or reach for my face with tiny hands. Or ask for a snack, a story, a hug. And just like that, part of me woke back up.
— 77 — My kids and grandchildren saved me more than they will ever know. Those babies—God bless them—brought life into that house. Their laughter, their energy, even their meltdowns, reminded me that this life is still moving, still growing, still worth leaning into. Supporting them through sensory overloads, school issues, and everyday challenges was exhausting, yes, but it was also holy work. They are not a burden. They are my light. And my daughters with their own families and son are shifting into manhood. We are two generations holding the line, refusing to give up on the people God placed in our care. But there came a point when I realized something I could no longer ignore: I had built a whole life around being strong for everyone else, and had never learned how to be gentle with myself. One evening, after a long day that followed an even longer week, I walked into my bedroom and instead of immediately reaching for clothes to lay out for the next morning, I just sat down. Shoes still on. Purse still hanging off my shoulder. It was too quiet inside me. The house was full—kids laughing in the other room, my mother humming to herself—but I felt profoundly alone. I whispered to myself, “Nina… when was the last time you felt held?” Not needed. Not respected. Not admired. Held. I couldn’t answer. Tears came—slow at first, then heavy. Not cute, movie-scene tears, but the deep ones that have been waiting years to fall. Tears from hospital beds. From late-night shifts. From early morning alarms. From “Can you?” and “We need you” and “You got us?” and
— 78 — “You’re the only one who can.” Tears from always being “on,” always “available,” always “strong.” When the crying finally slowed, I felt lighter and emptier at the same time. But in that emptiness, I heard something that sounded like God saying, “You are not here just to work. You are here to live.” I decided in that moment I would start giving myself a fraction of the grace I extended to everyone else. It started small. I stepped outside one evening and really listened to the wind instead of rushing back in. I let myself take a shower without counting how many minutes I was “wasting.” I stayed in bed a little longer on a day off. I said “no” to something I would’ve automatically said “yes” to before. I let the station figure things out without me for once. To the outside world, it looked like nothing had changed. I was still on air, still at events, still doing the work. But inside, something was shifting. I was learning to see myself as a human being again, not just a voice. Not just a role. Not just a title. I began to understand that rest is not betrayal. Rest is not weakness. Rest is not quitting. Rest is obedience—to the truth that we are finite, fragile, and worthy of care. As I gave myself permission to rest in little ways, I noticed something else: my love for the work didn’t fade. It clarified. I loved the listeners. I loved the music. I loved the connection. I loved being there for the city through elections, pandemics, protests, holidays, and everyday life. But I no longer wanted to confuse loving my work with sacrificing my health for it.
— 79 — I also realized that my real legacy was never going to be how many shifts I covered or how many remotes I worked. My real legacy was sitting in my living room, calling me “Mama” and “Gigi.” My legacy was the way my son leads his life, the way my oldest daughter builds her home, the way my youngest daughter mothers her children. My legacy was my grandbabies, who will one day tell their own children about the strong woman whose voice they heard on the radio and in the kitchen every day. And you know what else? My legacy was in the community—the men and women who come up to me in grocery stores, hospitals, schools, churches, fairs, festivals, saying, “Nina, you got me through some hard times.” People who buried loved ones and listened to my show for comfort. People who went through divorces, job losses, diagnoses, depression, and listened to me while they drove home, or sat in the driveway, or cleaned the house, or cooked dinner. They will remember that they were never alone. My voice rode with them. I began to realize I had a right to be kind to that woman behind the mic. The one who almost worked herself into an early grave. The one who risked her own body to keep promises. The one who forgot that being “strong” doesn’t mean never sitting down. Rest didn’t make me less Nina. It made me more whole. And in that wholeness, I found the strength to walk into the next chapters of my life with more wisdom, more honesty, and more boundaries than I had ever had before. My voice was still here. My city was still listening. But now, for the first time, I was listening to myself too. Nina’s Inspirational Magic:
— 80 — To all my listeners… to my family out there in the Ark-La-Tex… let me talk to the ones who are tired. To the Black women who were raised to be soldiers before they ever got to be little girls… To the Black men who were told to be protectors before they were allowed to be vulnerable… To the caregivers holding up both their parents and their children at the same time… To the single mothers and fathers working two, three jobs just to keep the lights on… To the grandparents raising grandbabies because life didn’t go as planned… To the ones who go to work sick, go home tired, and still don’t feel like it’s enough… I see you. I hear you. And I am you. We’ve been praised for our strength so long that we started to confuse exhaustion with virtue. We’ve been told, “You’re so strong,” when what we really needed to hear was, “You deserve rest.” We’ve been applauded for carrying more than anyone should, and somewhere in the applause we forgot we were never meant to carry it alone. Hear me clearly: Rest is not a reward; it is a right. You don’t earn rest by almost killing yourself. You don’t have to fall apart to prove you were tired. You are allowed to slow down. You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to take a break.
— 81 — You are allowed to leave some things undone. You are allowed to say, “I can’t be everything to everybody today.” To my sisters: you are not just strong, you are sacred. Your body is not a machine. Your mind is not a punching bag. Your heart is not a landfill for everyone else’s pain. You deserve gentleness. You deserve care. You deserve people around you who don’t only call when they need something. To my brothers: your value is not based on how much you provide or how well you hide your hurt. You are allowed to be tired. You are allowed to say, “I need help.” You are allowed to be held, not just depended on. Being vulnerable doesn’t make you less of a man; it makes you a whole one. To our elders: we honor the way you worked, the way you sacrificed, but we don’t have to repeat all the same patterns. We can love you and still choose a different way for ourselves. To our children: we owe you more than stories of struggle. We owe you examples of balance, joy, and peace. We owe you parents and grandparents who don’t disappear inside their own exhaustion. Family, hear me with your heart: You are not lazy for needing a day off. You are not selfish for protecting your energy. You are not weak for crying in the shower. You are not failing because you are tired. You are human. God made you that way on purpose. So if you can, sometime this week—even if it’s five minutes—sit down. Put the phone away. Turn the TV off. Breathe deep. Put
— 82 — your hand over your heart and remind yourself: “I deserve rest. I deserve care. I deserve to feel alive, not just useful.” I’m learning it too. We can learn it together. RADIO SIGN-OFF This is Nina Montgomery… your Queen of the Midday… signing off for now. But don’t you touch that dial. In the next chapter, we’re talking about what happens when a whole city crowns you with love—and how that love can carry you when your own strength runs low. Stay tuned, baby.
— 83 — CHAPTER — 09 — THE COMMUNITY VOICE: Crowned By The People Playlist: “Optimistic” – Sounds of Blackness This is Nina… and I am on the air. There comes a moment in this radio life when you realize you are no longer just a voice sliding between songs; you’ve become part of the soundtrack of people’s lives. You’re in their kitchens while they fry fish and seasoned chicken. You’re in their cars on the way to the Calumet plant, Ochsner hospital, Caddo Parish schools, or
— 84 — the downtown office. You’re in the background at beauty shops and barbershops, at trail rides and cookouts, at repasts and baby showers. One day, you wake up and understand that without anyone comforting you in your childhood, a whole city has quietly adopted you as family. I did not become “Queen of the Midday” because a company crowned me. Shreveport did. Bossier did. The Ark-La-Tex did. My crown didn’t come in a ceremony; it came in the form of hugs in fairgrounds parking lots, shouts from car windows at the Mansfield Road red lights, calls to the station from people sitting in break rooms and hospital rooms, and from the way listeners said my name like they were relieved to hear me. But before the city ever claimed to me, my children did. They were the first people to hear my voice as more than a job. To them, I wasn’t just “Nina on the air.” I was Mama who made the radio feel like home. I had my children in my twenties—determined, overwhelmed, hopeful, terrified, but so full of love I didn’t know where to put it all. Three babies who lit up my world like an opening jingle. Three little souls who watched me hustle, sacrifice, cry, laugh, and push forward anyway. We didn’t have much money, but we had purpose. We had each other. And we had a stubborn faith that somehow, somehow, we were going to make this life work. Some nights they slept on studio floors while I finished late shows. I can still see them, curled up under jackets and blankets, their little bodies rising and falling to the rhythm of the music coming through the monitors. While the city heard a calm, smooth voice gliding between songs, there I was in that dim room, glancing down at my babies nestled near my feet and whispering to myself, “Nina, you better make this life work. They are depending on you.” I would turn the mic on, smile into the silence, and say, “This is Nina… and I am on the air,” knowing that on the other side of that
— 85 — board was a city that needed comfort—and at my feet were three little lives that needed stability. They went with me to remote broadcasts, toy drives, Thanksgiving turkey giveaways, school supply rallies, citywide festivals, and Let the Good Times Roll weekends where the music was loud and the spirits were louder. While the crowd saw the Queen of the Midday hosting from the stage, my children saw their mother doing whatever it took to keep the lights on and the refrigerator filled. They carried boxes, passed out flyers, held my hand as we crossed streets crowded with vendors and families. They watched me celebrate our community when it was up and stand with it when it was down. I thought I was just taking them to work with me. I didn’t realize I was teaching them what it means to serve. As the years went on, those children grew into the kind of adults that make a mother weep with gratitude when the house is quiet. My son grew into a steady man—strong, thoughtful, accountable. Not loud, not showy, just solid. The kind of man you can count on without having to chase him down. I see him now and think, “God, thank You. Somehow, he made it through all the chaos of my schedule, the long nights, the heavy days, and still turned into this kind of human being.” My oldest daughter built a life of her own—a beautiful family, her own traditions, her own holidays, her own inside jokes around the table. When I see her happy, laughing with her spouse, tending to her children, decorating her home, slipping into the role of matriarch in her own right, it feels like I’m witnessing a promise being kept. All the nights she slept under radio consoles, all the mornings she rode to school with my voice still hoarse from the night shift, all the times she watched me walk out the house tired but determined—they turned into a woman who knows how to build joy where she is.
— 86 — And then there is my youngest daughter—the one with fire in her spirit and tenderness in her hands. Motherhood met her with a different kind of storm. My grandchildren came into this world needing more attention than most, with challenges that required patience, advocacy, appointments, and a fierce kind of love that does not quit just because the world doesn’t understand them. Special needs require a special kind of courage, the kind that shows up when you are exhausted, confused, and scared, and still says, “These are my babies. I will fight for them every single day.” I watch her navigate school systems, therapies, meltdowns, paperwork, and long nights, and I see my own reflection in a younger frame. She is doing what I did—holding up her children while learning how to hold herself together—but with tools and language I didn’t have back then. That humbles me. That makes me proud. Our house is not quiet. It is filled with footsteps and laughter and the occasional tantrum. It is full of schedules and pills and routines and alarms that keep us on track. It is three generations under one roof: my mother, still needing care; me, still functioning as daughter and mother and grandmother; my children and grandchildren, each with their own needs, gifts, and heartbreaks. Some days, the noise is overwhelming. Sometimes, the weight feels overwhelming. But when I step back and really look at it, I see blessings stacked on top of blessings. The kind of blessings you don’t always recognize in the middle of the mess, but you’d be heartbroken to lose. In the middle of all this—children, grandchildren, doctor visits, school meetings, my mother’s care, bills, and everything else—I still wake up, put on my headphones, and talk to a region. My listeners think I’m strong because I’ve been consistent. They say, “Nina, you’re always there. You’re like clockwork.” But what I wish more people understood is that my consistency was never about superstardom. It was about love. It was about duty. It was
— 87 — about knowing that somewhere out there, somebody needed to hear a familiar voice at noon to remind them they weren’t alone. People see the crown, but they don’t see the cost. They hear the voice, but not the tears crying in the car between shifts. They admire the strength, but don’t feel the 5 a.m. aches when the alarm goes off and the body begs for just one more hour. And yet, for every moment I felt worn out by the demands behind the scenes, my community found ways to pour back into me. During COVID, when the streets grew quiet and hospital parking lots stayed full, my phone lines stayed busy. People were scared. They were losing loved ones, missing funerals, struggling to breathe emotionally, even if their lungs were fine. I came to work when most of the building was empty, walking down hallways that felt like a ghost town, knowing only three of us had clearance to even be there. I sat behind that microphone and tried to sound like hope. I read updates, prayed with callers, played songs that felt like balm, and reminded people to hold on just one more day, then another, then another. What they didn’t know was that there were moments I turned the mic off, laid my head on the console, and whispered, “Lord, help me help them,” before turning it back on and smiling through the soundboard. When protests rose across the country and “Black Lives Matter” echoing through streets became a chorus you could feel as much as hear, I used my platform to be a calm but honest voice. I talked about our sons and daughters, about our fear and our pride, about the sacredness of our lives. Listeners called in—some angry, some grieving, some hopeful—and we held those conversations together. It wasn’t just about politics; it was about pain. It was about the everyday reality of being Black in America and still choosing joy.
— 88 — There were storms—literal ones—that swept through the Ark-La- Tex. Hurricanes, floods, power outages. People sat in their cars charging their phones, listening to the radio to figure out what was happening, where they could go, where help was. There were shootings in our city, losses of our young people, tragedies that shook neighborhoods and left us collectively holding our breath. In those moments, my voice had to be steady even when my heart was shaking. I had to show up as anchor and auntie and host and neighbor all at once. I had to be present. But here is what moves me every single time: the way this community has shown up for me in return. I have had trail riders tell me, grinning from ear to ear, “Nina, we don’t pull out of that lot until we hear your voice. You kick this ride off right.” I have had church mothers wrap me up in hugs so tight I felt like a child again, whispering in my ear, “Baby, we pray for you every day. Keep doing what you’re doing.” Teenagers at parades and festivals scream my name from behind barricades like I’m some big national celebrity, and I laugh because they have no idea how much that fills my spirit. I’ve heard men in work boots and uniforms call the station from plant floors, saying, “Queen, you got us through half this shift already. Keep it coming. We listening.” I’ve had nurses and CNAs tell me, “We play you in the break room every day, Nina. You don’t know how many patients you’ve helped and never seen.” One of the most humbling things is when people sing my theme song back to me. I’ll be in a grocery store or walking through the fairgrounds, and someone will look up, grin, and start singing, “Let’s get ready, get ready, get ready… for Nina Montgomery…” like I’m the surprise guest at my own party. When they do that, I don’t feel like a star. I feel like family. I feel like Shreveport’s sister, auntie, cousin, friend. I feel seen.
— 89 — I have had mothers stop me to talk about their children; they’ll say, “My baby grew up listening to you in the backseat every afternoon. Now they’re in college, and when they come home, they still look for you on the dial.” I’ve had grown men tell me they remember listening to my show when they were kids in the car with their mamas, asking, “Who is that lady?” and now they tune in themselves. Generations have grown up with my voice floating in the background of their lives. Sometimes, when I’m sitting alone in the studio, I try to picture all the places my voice is reaching: hospital rooms where someone is waiting on news about a loved one; kitchens where somebody is stirring a pot of beans while kids run around their legs; backyards where a grill is smoking and cousins are laughing; break rooms where folks are catching their breath between patients; cars driving across the bridge with the Red River rolling underneath them; elders sitting in recliners with the radio on because they don’t like the silence. I picture all those spaces, and I say a little prayer: “God, let my voice reach them the way they need it to today.” Being crowned by the people is not about ego. It is about responsibility. It is about understanding that your voice can either lift or crush, comfort or cut. I have tried my best to lift. To cradle. To remind folks of their better selves. To love them, even when I didn’t know their names. And on the days when life inside my own house felt like too much, when I worried about my grandchildren’s futures, when my mother’s mental health weighed heavy on my heart, when bills pressed in and my body ached, I would encounter someone out in public who would hug me and say, “You don’t know what you mean to this city.” In those moments, I understood that God was using them to talk back to me through my own listeners.
— 90 — They didn’t just crown me. They covered me. They held me up. They let me know that all those years of showing up on tired days were not in vain. My grandchildren, with all their particular needs and beautiful personalities, are growing up in a world where their “Gigi” is on the radio. They hear my voice and point to the speaker. They know that I am working hard, but they also know I come home to them. I want them to grow up understanding that their challenges are not a limitation; they are part of the story of who they are. Just like my mother’s illness, my father’s absence, my early responsibilities, and my long career were part of mine. Sometimes when I come home after a long day, one of my grandbabies will climb into my lap and start humming, rocking slightly, finding comfort just being pressed against me. In those quiet moments, away from the gospel shows and R&B ballads and news updates, I remember why I stayed. I stayed for my family. I stayed for my community. I stayed because my voice was a bridge between those two worlds. The Queen of the Midday is not a woman who sits on a throne above everyone else. She is a woman who stands in the middle of her people and says, “I am with you.” She is a woman who understands that the city made her just as much as she entertained the city. She is a woman who knows that when her time on the airwaves is over, what will remain is not her name in lights, but the way people recall how she made them feel. I am proud to say this: my city didn’t just listen to me. They loved me. And in loving them, I learned how to love myself a little more too.
— 91 — Nina’s Inspirational Magic: To all my listeners… my brothers, my sisters, my aunties, my uncles, my elders, my young ones, my single parents, my married couples, my divorced folks, my grandparents raising grandbabies, my caretakers, my quiet ones, my loud ones—lean in for a minute. I want to talk to you about family, community, and the way we carry each other. Raising a child is destiny work. Raising a child with special needs is sacred work. Caring for your parents while you are still raising your own children is generational work. None of it is easy. All of it is important. And it is happening, quietly, in living rooms and duplexes, in trailers and townhomes, in big houses and small apartments, all over our city. In the Black community, parenting isn’t just a job; it’s a calling that we share. We raise children in living rooms and at cookouts, in church pews and at football games, in car rides and corner stores. Aunties, neighbors, school secretaries, bus drivers, pastors, barbers, coaches, and yes, radio hosts—we all help shape them. Many of us are trying to pour love into kids while we are still healing the child inside of ourselves. To my single mothers: I know you are tired. I know there are nights the house is quiet and you wonder how much longer you can stretch yourself this thin. I know you sometimes question if you’re doing enough, if your kids notice your sacrifices, if they will grow up resenting the things you couldn’t give them. I want you to hear me: you are not failing. You are fighting. Your presence, your effort, your love—that is more powerful than any perfect picture you see on social media. Your children may not understand everything now, but one day, they will look back and see a woman who refused to abandon them or herself.
— 92 — To my fathers: your presence is irreplaceable. Even if your childhood did not give you a father who showed you how to be one, you can still change the story. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be present. A call. A steady hand. A listening ear. A soft word. Showing up to games. Asking how their day was. Telling your children you love them even if those words feel strange in your mouth at first. You are not defined by the ways you may have fallen short in the past. You are defined by the choices you make now. To my grandparents raising grandchildren: I see the tired in your eyes and the love in your actions. You thought that stage of life was behind you, but life brought it back around. You’re attending school functions when you thought you’d be resting. You’re packing lunches when your friends are planning trips. You are doing it anyway. Please know: heaven is taking note. And those children will grow up knowing that love showed up for them twice—once in their parents, once in you. To caretakers of elders, especially those caring for parents with mental illness or physical decline: there is no manual for what you are doing. You’re learning as you go. You are holding memories of who they were while navigating who they are now. You are grieving and loving at the same time. Be gentle with yourself. You are doing something incredible, even on the days it feels like you are barely hanging on. To anyone who has ever felt like they weren’t enough because the bills were late, the house was messy, the kids acted out, the marriage struggled, or the job fell through—hear me clearly: your value is not measured in perfection. Family is not built on flawless days. Family is built on showing up. On trying again. On laughing when you can and surviving together when you must.
— 93 — I want you to know this, from my heart to yours: you are part of a community that loves you more than you realize. That woman who nods at you in the grocery store aisle? She is praying for you. That man who holds the door open for you at the gas station? He’s seen your struggle. That teacher who calls just to say your child did well? She’s rooting for you. That radio host who speaks into your car every midday? She carries you in her spirit, even if she doesn’t know your name. You are not doing this alone. You have a village, even if you can’t always see it. You are enough. You have always been enough. And by God’s grace, you will always be enough. This is Nina… your Queen of the Midday… signing off. Hold tight. In the next chapter, we’re going to talk about legacy, leadership, and the power of finally drawing boundaries in a world that always wants just one more piece of you. Stay tuned.
— 94 — PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE VOICE
— 95 — CHAPTER —10 — THE EMPOWERED VOICE: Mentorship and Boundaries** Playlist: Whitney Houston — “Step by Step” This is Nina… and I am on the air. There comes a moment in a woman’s life when she has lived enough, hurt enough, learned enough, and survived enough to finally return to the one person she has always overlooked— herself. That moment didn’t enter my life loudly. It didn’t come with fireworks or a breakdown. It slipped into my spirit quietly, like a soft instrumental easing into a new hour. I didn’t even realize
— 96 — at first that I had stepped into a new season. All I knew was that one day, I stopped apologizing for needing peace. I stopped shrinking myself to fit inside other people’s expectations. I stopped carrying burdens that weren’t mine. And I finally understood something I should’ve learned long ago: boundaries are not selfish. They are sacred. I didn’t grow up with boundaries. I grew up with responsibility— heavy responsibility that came before I ever had the chance to learn who I was. When you are raised by a mother battling mental illness, you learn to read rooms with your skin. You learn to watch faces, measure tones, predict moods, and respond instantly. You learn alertness, not rest. You learn caution, not comfort. And somewhere along the way, you silently agree to carry weight that does not belong to you. That emotional radar became my inheritance. My silence became my armor. I learned to anticipate needs before anyone spoke them. But boundaries? Lord… nobody taught me those. I carried that pattern straight into adulthood. I became the woman everybody leaned on. The woman who didn’t say no. The woman who made the impossible happen. The woman who held the station together when it should have fallen apart. The woman who showed up early, stayed late, trained the new hires, covered empty shifts, answered every phone call, wiped every tear, and still took care of her mother, children, grandchildren, and community. I believed being available made me loyal. I believed being exhausted made me worthy. I believed carrying everyone else’s burdens made me valuable. And that belief—baby—would’ve drained the soul out of me if God hadn’t pulled me into a season of clarity. When younger radio personalities—especially young Black women—began gravitating toward me for mentorship, I poured into them with everything I had. I saw myself in them: eager, talented, hopeful, nervous, gifted, and sometimes unsure if they
— 97 — belonged. I taught them how to walk into a studio with authority, how to speak from the diaphragm instead of fear, how to own a microphone with presence instead of pretense, how to navigate male-dominated spaces without losing their joy or their identity. But in teaching them, I realized something powerful: I was teaching them boundaries I had never practiced myself. Mentorship became sacred work for me. It wasn’t just about radio; it was about helping young women understand that their voice deserved protection. I wanted them to know they didn’t have to shrink to make others comfortable. They didn’t have to pretend to be small to be safe. They didn’t have to carry an entire building on their back to prove they belonged. So I found myself giving advice I had needed decades earlier: “Sweetheart, your ‘no’ is just as holy as your ‘yes.’” “You don’t owe the world your burnout.” “Protect your spirit—this industry can take more than it gives.” And after I poured those words into them, I often went home, sat alone at my kitchen table, and let those same words settle into my own bones. As boundaries took root in me, something softened. Not hardened—softened. People think boundaries make you tough, but really, they make you gentle. They protect the parts of you that have been scraped raw by life. They give your spirit room to breathe. They give your heart room to heal. And they give your voice room to rest. For the first time, I understood that boundaries were not walls—they were doorways. They weren’t about keeping people out; they were about letting myself in. This new version of me began to mentor differently. No more glamorizing exhaustion. No more praising women for working themselves into hospitals. No more teaching young men that leadership meant toughness instead of emotional honesty. Now, I teach something deeper: that a good life requires limits. That love requires truth. That families require boundaries. That careers require breath. That Black women do not have to bleed to be seen
— 98 — as strong. And that Black men can be vulnerable without losing one ounce of their dignity. I tell every mentee who comes to me, “You deserve space. You deserve rest. You deserve joy. You deserve protection.” But the lesson didn’t stop with mentorship. It moved into my family. My children began to see a mother who still gave, still served, still showed up—but now balanced it with her own well- being. My grandchildren saw a Gigi who wasn’t always rushed or overwhelmed, but present, patient, and emotionally available. Even my mother, whose illness shaped so much of my early life, received a calmer, gentler version of me—one who no longer resented the responsibility, but understood the boundary between duty and self-neglect. The more I honored my boundaries, the more freedom I felt settling into my spirit. For the first time, I allowed myself to breathe without earning it. To rest without apologizing for it. To say “no” without explaining. To choose myself without guilt. And the microphone—my lifelong companion—reflected that change. My tone carried new warmth. My laughter had new depth. My presence had new strength. My confidence had new roots. Listeners began calling the station saying, “Nina, something sounds different. Are you happy?” And for the first time in years… I could answer: Yes. I’m learning to be. What surprised me most was how boundaries transformed my relationships. I stopped attracting people who only needed me. I started drawing people who valued me. I stopped feeling responsible for everyone’s happiness. I started taking responsibility for my own. I stopped over-giving. I started equalizing. And the more I did, the more whole I became.
— 99 — But here’s the truth I want you to understand: protecting your peace doesn’t mean you don’t love people. It means you finally love yourself too. Nina’s Inspirational Magic: To all my listeners… my family… my Ark-La-Tex community… lean in close. We are a people born from resilience. Born from survival. Born from hope. Born from love. But too many of us learned to survive without learning how to safeguard our souls. Too many of us were taught to endure instead of express. Too many of us were raised to be strong instead of being whole. Too many of us—men and women—are still carrying emotional luggage that belongs to generations before us. So let me tell you something gently, but firmly: You do not have to break to be valuable. You do not have to bleed to be worthy. You do not have to exhaust yourself to be loved. Black women—rest is not a luxury. It is your right. Black men—your tears do not reduce you. They reveal you. Young people—your voice matters. You don’t have to shout to be heard. Elders—you have earned the right to put your load down. Let others carry the next stretch of the road. Families—boundaries will not break you. They will save you. You deserve joy. You deserve peace.
— 100 — You deserve love that does not drain you. And baby, you deserve a full life— not an exhausted one. Radio Sign-Off This is Nina Montgomery… your Queen of the Midday… signing off for now. Don’t leave the station, sweetheart. Chapter Eleven is on the way— and that’s the chapter where the voice I fought for finally becomes whole. Stay tuned.
— 101 — CHAPTER — 11 — THE FULLY OWNED VOICE: Becoming Herself Playlist: Lauryn Hill — “Everything Is Everything” This is Nina… and I am on the air. There comes a moment in a woman’s life when the pieces of who she has been—child, mother, daughter, worker, caretaker, survivor—finally turn toward her instead of away. A moment when she stops running, stops explaining, stops shrinking, and stops apologizing. A moment when she looks at her own reflection and
— 102 — realizes that every version of herself has been walking her toward this exact place. For decades, I spoke to a city with confidence, warmth, and joy, but this chapter… this chapter was the first time I truly learned how to speak to myself. People assume confidence comes naturally to a woman who’s stood behind a microphone for thirty-seven years. They imagine the voice comes with certainty, the smile comes without effort, and the laughter rises without weight. They hear confidence in my tone and assume it lives easily in my spirit. But they do not hear the tears it took to stand here, the healing I had to push through, the grace I had to learn to give to myself. The truth is, my voice belonged to everybody—my mother, my children, my listeners, my community, my job—long before it ever belonged to me. This chapter is about the moment I finally claimed it for myself. Healing didn’t arrive in one dramatic moment. It crept in softly, as most breakthroughs do. It tugged at old wounds. It forced me to revisit memories I thought I had buried. It made me sit with truths I had ignored for years. And somewhere between motherhood, radio, heartbreak, therapy, prayer, and survival, something slowly shifted. I began to understand the difference between being loved for what I gave and being loved for who I was. I began to see the difference between being needed and being valued. I realized that the little girl inside me—the one who longed for her mother’s affection and her father’s presence—had grown into a woman who could love everyone else without ever learning to love herself. For a long time, I believed my mother hated me. That truth is painful to admit, but it is how life felt growing up. I often felt like a stepchild in my own home—corrected more than comforted, watched more than held, required to be strong instead of allowed to be soft. As a child, I couldn’t separate my mother from her illness, so I internalized the distance as rejection. I believed I was unloved. But adulthood—and therapy—taught me a truth that changed everything: my mother never hated me. She hated the illness that
— 103 — trapped her. She hated the fog that stole her clarity. She hated how schizophrenia robbed her of the softness she once had and the freedom she wanted to give her child. Through the illness, I now see the love that lived underneath it all. Her toughness was not cruelty—it was preparation. God does not make mistakes. What I endured was not punishment; it was training. Training to stand strong. Training to carry weight. Training to hold space. Training to use my voice to carry an entire community across the airwaves. And then one day—long after I had stopped expecting affirmation—my mother gave me a gift that changed my life forever. A plaque. Simple. Gold-lettered. Powerful. It read: “Nina Montgomery, The Queen of the Midday #1. Love, Mom.” In that moment, everything shifted. I realized she had been listening all along. She could hear my voice. She was proud of me. She loved me. That plaque became the motivation behind this book. You are reading these words today because my mother showed me that she could hear me—over the airwaves, through the illness, through the silence. Just like she heard me years ago when I stood on stage as Alice in Alice in Wonderland, when she took off work to sit in the audience for all four performances just to hear my voice. That plaque still sits in my office today, reminding me that beneath the illness, beneath the struggle, my mother’s voice has always been trying to reach me. And if she can hear me now, I want her to know this: Mom, I do love you. And thank you—for listening, for believing, and for never completely letting go of my voice. As I think about mother’s golden plaque… that realization hit me like truth always does: gentle at first, then powerful enough to rearrange everything. One morning before sunrise, I sat alone in the studio with Lauryn Hill’s “Everything Is Everything” humming low in the background. That song carried a kind of freedom—a release—that wrapped around me like a warm blanket. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and felt something I hadn’t felt in years: quiet pride. Not pride in the work I produced or the people I cared
— 104 — for. But pride in Nina—the woman behind the microphone. The woman who endured. The woman who learned. The woman who healed. The woman who held the city up even on the days she could barely hold herself. The woman whose voice had survived storms long before the world ever heard it. For the first time, I sat in that chair not as a radio personality, not as a mother or grandmother, not as a daughter or caregiver, not as the “Queen of the Midday,” but as a woman—whole, healing, and finally turning toward herself. For so long, I waited for someone else to validate me. Parents. Partners. Bosses. Coworkers. The world teaches little Black girls to wait for approval that never comes. But in that studio, as the sun crept in and painted the equipment gold, God whispered something only my spirit could hear: “Daughter, you don’t need permission to be whole.” That whisper cracked me open. It showed me that worth is not earned. Peace is not purchased through suffering. Rest is not granted through hardship. Wholeness is not a reward—it is a right. And when I finally accepted that truth, something in my voice changed. It didn’t grow louder or stronger; it grew fuller. It grew rooted. It grew honest. A voice with nothing left to hide and nothing left to prove. My father’s late-in-life “I love yous” stopped feeling like corrections for the past and instead became blessings for the future. My mother’s illness became something I could hold with compassion instead of guilt. My mistakes softened into lessons. My silence became a testimony. Everything I once thought made me broken became the very thing that made me whole. As sunrise washed across the studio glass, I whispered to myself, “Nina… this is who you are now.” A woman who survived her childhood. A mother who raised three remarkable children. A grandmother who loves fiercely. A daughter who forgave without
— 105 — losing herself. A worker who kept a city together with nothing but her voice. A survivor who finally learned how to breathe. A legend who never asked to be one. A woman learning to love herself in real time. And when the hour changed, I turned on the mic—not just as the Queen of the Midday, but as a woman who finally knew her worth beyond the applause. This is Nina… and I am on the air. And this time, baby… the air felt different. As I stepped deeper into this new season of my life, I realized something I had never truly understood before: healing is not loud. Healing is not a shout, not a celebration, not a public declaration. Healing is quiet. It is subtle. It sneaks in on mornings when you least expect it, in the way your shoulders relax without permission, in the way you breathe differently when you’re not bracing for impact. Healing is the slow unraveling of old stories you thought you had to live by forever. Healing is hearing your own voice and recognizing it as your own. For years, my identity was built around roles—mother, daughter, grandmother, radio personality, community leader, caretaker, advocate, mentor. But roles don’t make a woman whole. They make her useful. They make her dependable. They make her necessary. And Lord knows I have been necessary to many. But wholeness… wholeness comes when you learn to see yourself beyond what you give to others. When you find the courage to ask: “Who am I when no one needs me?” In this chapter of my life, I began asking that question with sincerity, with curiosity, with gentleness instead of guilt. And the truth that rose inside me felt both unfamiliar and sacred: I am more than my obligations. I am more than my trauma. I am more than
— 106 — the love I gave without receiving. I am more than the stories people tell about me. I am more than the pain I survived. For the first time, I saw myself as a full person, not a patchwork of responsibilities. One of the biggest shifts came when I started giving myself permission to soften. I had lived so long in survival mode—high alert, high responsibility, high expectations—that softness felt like a foreign language. Nobody teaches little Black girls to be soft. We are taught to be strong, to endure, to rise, to fix, to forgive, to stretch. Softness was a luxury I thought belonged to other people— people who had been protected, nurtured, emotionally held. But the more I healed, the more I understood that softness is not a weakness. Softness is a return to yourself. Softness is the reclamation of everything life tried to harden. Softness is allowing joy to sit where fear once lived. Softness is letting your own love in. And baby… letting softness in after a lifetime of bracing is its own kind of miracle. I think a part of this awakening came from watching my grandchildren grow. Children, especially those with special needs, love without pretense. They love without calculation. They love wholeheartedly, loudly, fully, with their arms, their laughter, their presence. Their love did not ask me to perform. Their love did not demand anything from me besides presence. That kind of love heals places therapy can only point to. It reaches the inner child you forgot was still sitting inside you, waiting to be held. My grandchildren taught me how to receive love without earning it. They taught me how to accept joy without feeling guilty about it. They taught me how to find delight in small things—bubbles in the yard, a favorite snack, a warm hug, a silly moment. They taught me how to slow down long enough to notice the world again. And
— 107 — in those lessons, I realized just how long I had lived without sweetness. Not because I didn’t deserve it, but because I didn’t know how to recognize it. Another part of my healing came from allowing myself to see my mother differently. For most of my life, her illness felt like a storm I was trapped inside. I blamed myself for things I could never control. I internalized her confusion, her distance, her pain as reflections of my worth. But adulthood and therapy taught me a truth that changed everything: my mother’s illness was never a commentary on my value. It was a battle she never chose. A burden she never deserved. A heartbreak that reshaped her ability to love, not her desire to love. She loved me in the ways she could, even when those ways didn’t feel like love to a child. Understanding that freed me—not from responsibility, but from guilt. It allowed me to hold compassion for the woman who raised me while still acknowledging the wounds that shaped me. It allowed me to love her fully without abandoning myself in the process. It allowed me to separate my identity from her pain. And that was one of the most liberating moments of my life. My father, too, found his way back into my heart in this season. Not as the hero I once dreamed of, not as the man I hoped he would be, but as a human being—flawed, growing, trying. When he began saying “I love you” in my adulthood, I realized those words carried the weight of years he couldn’t articulate, fears he couldn’t face, apologies he didn’t know how to shape into language. And instead of holding on to resentment, I chose to hold grace. Because grace doesn’t excuse the past—it releases the past so it can no longer hold you hostage. That decision didn’t erase the little girl who longed for him. It honored the woman who finally understood her father’s limitations
— 108 — were not her failures. And as I softened toward him, I softened toward myself too. In this chapter of becoming, I realized that my voice—this voice the city loves, this voice that has comforted thousands—was never just about radio. My voice is the sound of a woman who survived emotional hunger, spiritual storms, generational wounds, and the heavy expectations of a community she loves. It is the sound of a woman who rose from silence into boldness. A woman who learned to parent herself while raising others. A woman who finally understood that the love she gave the world had always been the love she needed to give herself. And as that truth settled into my bones, I felt lighter. Not because life got easier—but because I finally laid down the pieces that were never mine to carry. For the first time in my journey, I wasn’t raising my voice for survival, or for duty, or for appearance, or for others. I was raising my voice because it belonged to me. As I continued stepping into this new understanding of myself, something beautiful started happening—quietly, steadily, like the lights coming up in a theater just before a show begins. I began to enjoy my own company. Not the rushed version of me that only existed between responsibilities. Not the broadcast version of me that had to be “on” no matter how tired I was. But the real Nina. The woman behind the voice. I began taking myself on drives with no destination. I started cooking meals just because they made me smile. I took time to breathe, to sit, to rest, to feel. Lord… it felt strange at first—being good to myself without earning it. But soon it became familiar, then comforting, then
— 109 — necessary. I realized I had spent so much of my life giving away my tenderness that I had forgotten I could keep some for myself. And just when I thought I had reached the height of self- understanding, something else shifted inside me: I stopped apologizing for who I am. Not the polished version. The whole version. I stopped shrinking my intelligence to make others comfortable. I stopped softening my shine for people who hadn’t earned the glow. I stopped downplaying my accomplishments. I stopped accepting crumbs from people I had fed full meals. For the first time, I stood fully in my truth—not the half-version I learned to present, but the whole, healed, powerful woman God molded out of every chapter I survived. This didn’t make me arrogant; it made me honest. It didn’t make me cold; it made me clear. It didn’t make me difficult; it made me whole. And something incredible happened when I embraced that wholeness: I began to attract people and experiences that matched my healed self instead of my wounded self. The conversations around me changed. The energy in my home shifted. The way I moved through the studio became different—lighter, freer, more rooted in who I was, not who people wanted me to be. Listeners could hear it too. People would stop me at the grocery store and say, “Nina, your voice got even warmer. I don’t know what you’re doing, but don’t stop.” I smiled, because for the first time ever, I understood: they weren’t
— 110 — hearing a difference in my voice. They were hearing a difference in my soul. And let me tell you—when a Black woman finally begins to love herself fully, the world feels that shift. Her walk changes. Her tone changes. Her tears change. Her laughter deepens. Her boundaries sharpen. Her purpose crystallizes. Her joy becomes contagious. Her confidence becomes quiet but undeniable. Healing didn’t make me someone new. It brought me back to the woman I was always meant to be. I became more patient with myself. More forgiving of my past. More grateful for my path. More courageous about my future. And most importantly, I became more Nina than I had ever allowed myself to be. By the time I reached this point in my life, I no longer hid my scars. I honored them. I no longer ran from my childhood wounds. I tended to them. I no longer dismissed my needs. I named them. I no longer accepted love that hurt more than it healed. I chose differently. For the first time in my long radio journey, I realized I wasn’t just “Queen of the Midday” because the city loved me. I was Queen of the Midday because I finally learned to love myself.
— 111 — Nina’s Inspirational Magic: (To all my listeners… my people… my family) Lean in, baby. I want you to hear this with your whole heart. So many of us have lived years—decades even—without knowing our true worth. We buried it under responsibility. We hid it behind fear. We silenced it to keep the peace. We traded it for survival. We forgot it while taking care of everybody else. But your worth does not disappear just because you stopped looking at it. Your worth waits. Patiently. Quietly. Tenderly. For the day you finally say, “I deserve more than pain. I deserve more than struggle. I deserve more than being the strong one all the time.” Let me remind you of something sacred: You can rewrite your story. You can reclaim your identity. You can heal at 15 or 50 or 75. You can grow into yourself without apology. You can love yourself back to life. You can choose joy even if the world taught you fear. You can forgive without forgetting. You can walk away without guilt. You can rise without anyone else’s permission. And baby… you can own your voice—the one God placed inside you long before the world tried to silence it.
— 112 — Your voice is your freedom. Your voice is your power. Your voice is your birthright. And when you finally claim it, the world adjusts. RADIO SIGN-OFF This is Nina Montgomery… your Queen of the Midday… signing off with a full heart. Thank you for listening. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for growing with me. Thank you for holding my voice like family. Now stay right here on this wavelength… Because Chapter Twelve, baby— that’s where healing becomes legacy. Where truth becomes freedom. Where silence finally breaks. Where the voice you hear on the radio becomes a beacon for every soul who ever needed permission to speak. Stay tuned. The healing continues.
— 113 — CHAPTER —12 — THE HEALING VOICE: I Am Magic — Growth Is L.E.G.A.C.Y. Playlist: Lauryn Hill — “Everything Is Everything” This is Nina… and I am on the air. I am Magic. I say it into the microphone before the city wakes up. I say it before the phone lines open. I say it before I play the first song of the hour. I say it… so you will say it too.
— 114 — I say it out loud before the music drops. I say it into the microphone so it can travel through car speakers, kitchen radios, hospital rooms, break rooms, and quiet apartments where somebody needs to hear it. I say it not because I always felt it, but because I learned the power of speaking truth before you fully believe it. And when I say, “I am Magic,” I’m not saying it just for me. I’m saying it so you can say it next. Because somewhere along the way, I learned that when one person claims their worth out loud, it gives everyone listening permission to do the same. There was a time in my life when I did not feel magical at all. There were seasons when survival replaced joy and responsibility outweighed rest. Seasons when I showed up strong for everybody else while quietly wondering where my softness went. I raised children, carried a household, cared for my mother, worked long hours, and gave my voice to a city every single day. And even though people told me I inspired them, I didn’t always feel inspired myself. I kept encouraging others while still learning how to encourage the woman in the mirror. But every time I turned on the mic and said, “This is Nina… and I am on the air,” something sacred happened. The connection was real. The love was real. The healing was real — even when I couldn’t feel it yet. My voice became a bridge between people and their own hope. Between loneliness and belonging. Between pain and possibility. And what I understand now is this: Magic is not confidence. Magic is growth. Magic grows slowly. It grows through pressure. It grows through repetition. It grows through pain you didn’t ask for and responsibility you didn’t expect. It grows the way grapes grow into fine wine — over time, under weight, shaped by conditions you don’t control. When I look back over my life now, I see that every experience in this book was growing me. My childhood shaped my listening. My mother’s illness shaped my compassion. My father’s
— 115 — absence shaped my independence. My heartbreak shaped my boundaries. My radio journey shaped my purpose. Nothing was wasted. For years, I lived this truth without naming it. I mentored quietly. I encouraged intentionally. I spoke life daily. I helped people through loss, transitions, fear, reinvention — sometimes without ever knowing their names. But this chapter marks the moment when lived wisdom becomes something I can hand to others. Something structured. Something intentional. Something sustainable. That is why my company is called Grow Your Legacy LLC. Because legacy is not what happens when your life ends. Legacy is what happens when your life finally makes sense. Legacy is how you take what happened to you and decide what it will mean through you. Legacy is choosing not to be defined by what broke you, but by what you built after. Legacy is growth with purpose. And as I stepped back and reflected on my own journey — not as a radio personality, but as a woman — God showed me a pattern. A rhythm. A process that had quietly guided my life from survival into service. That process became the foundation of my work today. I call it the Growth Is L.E.G.A.C.Y.™ Self-Empowerment Model, and it is not theory — it is lived experience. The first step is Listen. Listen to your life. Listen to your pain. Listen to the moments that still tug at you when everything is quiet. I didn’t begin healing until I stopped running from my story and started listening to it without judgment. Then comes Examine. Examine what shaped you — the good, the painful, the unfair. When I examined my past honestly, I stopped blaming myself for
— 116 — surviving the way I did and started understanding why I became who I am. Growth follows when you allow it. But growth does not rush. Growth respects timing. And for years, my growth was happening even when I didn’t recognize it yet. That is what this book is about. Not perfection. Not success. But becoming. And if you’re reading this right now, it’s because your growth is still unfolding too. After listening comes the courage to examine. That part isn’t easy. Examining your life means sitting with truths you once avoided. It means looking at the choices you made when you didn’t know better and offering yourself grace instead of judgment. For a long time, I examined my life only through the lens of responsibility— what I had to do, who depended on me, how I survived. But when I finally examined my story with honesty, I saw something new. I saw patterns. I saw resilience. I saw that the very things I once thought disqualified me were actually qualifying me for a deeper purpose. Examination helped me stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me, and what did I learn from it?” That shift changed everything. Because once you examine your life with compassion, you create space to grow. Growth is not a straight line. It doesn’t announce itself. It happens quietly, often while you’re just trying to get through the day. My growth happened while raising children, while caring for my mother, while navigating radio stations and relationships, while enduring environments that tested my spirit. Growth didn’t wait for me to
— 117 — feel ready. It met me where I was and kept moving. Looking back now, I can see that every challenge stretched me, strengthened me, and shaped my voice. Growth taught me patience. Growth taught me endurance. Growth taught me how to speak gently and stand firmly at the same time. But growth alone is not enough. Growth must be aligned. Alignment is where purpose enters the picture. Alignment is when your gifts, your experiences, and your values begin to move in the same direction. For me, alignment came when I realized my voice was never accidental. It was not just a skill; it was an assignment. Everything I had lived through sharpened my ability to listen deeply, speak thoughtfully, and hold space for others. When I aligned my voice with my values—truth, compassion, consistency, faith—my work stopped draining me and started fulfilling me. Alignment is what turns effort into peace. Once alignment happens, you are ready to create. Creation is not about building something flashy; it is about building something meaningful. I created community through radio. I created safety through sound. I created comfort through consistency. I didn’t set out to be extraordinary—I set out to be present. Over time, presence became influence, and influence became impact. Creation is where your growth becomes visible. It’s where your pain transforms into purpose and your experience becomes something others can use. When you create from truth, what you build lasts longer than anything rooted in performance. And finally, there is yield. Yielding is often misunderstood. It does not mean giving up your power; it means trusting it. Yielding is allowing your legacy to serve something greater than ego. It is understanding that your story was never meant to end with you. I yield my voice to the community, to faith, to healing, to the next generation. I yield my platform so others can rise. Yielding is
— 118 — where legacy takes its final shape—not as ownership, but as stewardship. This is how Growth becomes L.E.G.A.C.Y. Listen. Examine. Grow. Align. Create. Yield. This model did not come from a classroom or a boardroom. It came from life. It came from long nights and early mornings. It came from heartbreak and healing. It came from being needed before being nurtured. It came from learning how to turn survival into service without losing myself in the process. And what I want you to understand, reading this now, is that your life holds the same potential. You do not need a microphone to have a voice. You do not need a platform to have purpose. You do not need permission to begin building your legacy. Everything you have survived, everything you have learned, everything you are still becoming—it all matters. Your experiences are not random. They are raw material. Through Grow Your Legacy LLC, my work now is to help people see that truth for themselves. To create spaces where reflection leads to clarity. Where healing leads to growth. Where growth leads to legacy. This is not about telling people what to do; it’s about helping them recognize what they already carry. The same way my voice grew stronger through time and trial, your purpose is growing too—often quietly, often patiently, often unnoticed until one day it asks to be named.
— 119 — This book is part of that naming. It is my way of saying that nothing we go through is wasted unless we refuse to learn from it. It is my way of honoring the journey that shaped me while opening the door for others to begin shaping theirs. If you have ever wondered how to turn pain into progress, how to turn experience into wisdom, how to turn your story into something that serves beyond you—this is where it begins. And if you’re still unsure whether you’re ready, let me remind you of something important: grapes don’t rush becoming wine. They sit. They endure pressure. They change slowly. And one day, they become something richer than they were at the beginning. Growth respects timing. So does legacy. You are not behind. You are becoming. I am Magic. And the truth is, there were many seasons of my life when I didn’t feel magical at all. I said the words on the air long before I fully believed them in my spirit. I asked my listeners to say them with me—I am listening to Nina Montgomery, and I am Magic—even while I was still learning how to look in the mirror and say it without hesitation. But that is how belief works sometimes. You speak it forward before you feel it fully. You practice it until it becomes true. And little by little, the words begin to take root. As I cheered my listeners on, I was also cheering myself forward. I was learning that Magic is not perfection, not applause, not success without struggle. Magic is choosing to grow anyway. It is choosing to heal anyway. It is choosing to show up anyway—especially when life has given you every reason to retreat. My Magic came from being honest about where I was and brave enough to imagine where I could go.
— 120 — That is what this book has been about all along. Not radio. Not titles. Not longevity. But growth. Growth through childhood responsibility. Growth through grief. Growth through love and loss. Growth through exhaustion. Growth through community. Every chapter is proof that nothing you endure is wasted when you allow it to teach you. Every experience I shared became a lesson, and every lesson became part of my legacy. Legacy, I’ve learned, is not what people say about you when you leave the room. Legacy is what lives on because you dared to be intentional while you were still here. Legacy is the voice you pass down. The courage you model. The healing you normalize. The conversations you start. The permission you give others to be whole. That understanding is what led me to build Grow Your Legacy LLC. Not as a business born from ambition, but as a platform born from reflection. Growth Is L.E.G.A.C.Y.™ is the framework that helped me understand my own life, and now it is the tool I want to offer others. Because too many people are walking around with untapped wisdom, buried insight, and unrealized purpose simply because no one ever showed them how to look at their experiences differently. Through this work, I want to help people slow down and listen to their lives. To examine their stories without shame. To recognize the growth already present in their journey. To align their gifts with meaning. To create something honest from what they’ve lived. And finally, to yield that wisdom in a way that blesses others. This is not about erasing trauma—it is about transforming it. It is about understanding that what tried to break you may be the very thing that qualifies you to build something lasting. I want my listeners—my family—to know this: you are not behind. You are not forgotten. You are not unfinished. You are in process.
— 121 — And process is holy. If you are still breathing, still dreaming, still asking questions, still searching for purpose, then your legacy is still being written. The same way I found my healing through my voice, you can find yours through yours—whether that voice shows up in art, leadership, parenting, service, business, teaching, faith, or quiet strength. Your voice does not need a microphone to matter. It needs intention. It needs truth. It needs courage. And so, before I sign off for the last time in these pages, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the listeners who held me when I didn’t know I needed holding. Thank you to the community that crowned me not with ego, but with love. Thank you to every person who called in, waved in public, prayed for me, laughed with me, cried with me, and reminded me—day after day—that my voice mattered. You helped heal me while I was helping you. That is Magic. NINA SAYS — FINAL MESSAGE Family… if you take nothing else from this book, take this with you: Your life is speaking to you. Your experiences are teaching you. Your story is valuable. Your growth is visible—even when it feels slow. You don’t have to become someone else to matter. You don’t have to erase your past to move forward. You don’t have to wait until everything is perfect to begin. Listen to your life. Learn from it.
— 122 — Grow through it. And then—build something that outlives you. That is legacy. And baby… it belongs to you too. FINAL RADIO SIGN-OFF This is Nina Montgomery… your Queen of the Midday… your sister in growth… your voice in the in-between… Signing off—not in silence, but in purpose. Keep listening to your life. Keep choosing growth. Keep building your legacy. And never forget— I am Magic. And so are you. Signing off… but the frequency lives on.
— 123 — EPILOGU E GIVE MENTAL HEALTH A VOICE: BREAKING THE SILENCE IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY The Frequency Lives On This is Nina… and I am still on the air. If you’ve stayed with me this far, I want you to know something important: this final moment is not about wrapping things up neatly. Life doesn’t work that way. Healing doesn’t work that way. Growth doesn’t work that way. This is about telling the truth out loud and leaving the door open for what comes next. For generations, mental health in the Black community has lived in silence. Not because we didn’t hurt—but because we were taught
— 124 — not to name the hurt. We learned how to survive anything, endure everything, and keep moving no matter the cost. We were raised on phrases like “pray it away,” “don’t tell nobody our business,” “be strong,” and “it could be worse.” And so we survived everything while healing from almost nothing. I know this silence intimately. I grew up loving a mother who battled mental illness in a time when there were no conversations, no tools, and very little support. I watched a brilliant, educated, powerful woman lose pieces of herself to an illness she did not choose. I became a caregiver before I became a teenager. I learned to manage moods, soften my voice, walk on eggshells, and carry responsibility that belonged to adults. And like so many children in our community, I learned early that love sometimes comes wrapped in pain. That is why I am using my voice—one last time in these pages—to say what we don’t say enough: mental illness is not a moral failure. It is not weakness. It is not shame. It is a health condition, and health conditions deserve care, compassion, and support. To the parents reading this who are struggling in silence—mothers and fathers battling depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, trauma, or exhaustion—I see you. You are not broken. You are human. You are doing the best you can with what you have, often without the language or resources you deserved. Seeking help does not mean you love your children less. It means you love them enough to want more for them than survival. To the children who grew up too fast—who cooked, cleaned, protected, translated, soothed, and held households together—this part is especially for you. You were not “just helping out.” You were carrying weight that never should have been yours alone. You were brave. You were resilient. You were strong beyond your
— 125 — years. And you deserved support too. If you are still carrying that weight into adulthood, it is not too late to put some of it down. To my Black men—brothers, sons, fathers, uncles—your voice matters. Your tears matter. Your mental health matters. Strength does not require silence. Vulnerability does not diminish you. Your children do not need you perfect—they need you present. Speak. Ask for help. Stay. To my Black women—sisters who hold families together, who pour from empty cups, who are expected to heal everyone else while bleeding quietly—rest is not laziness. Boundaries are not betrayal. Therapy is not weakness. You deserve softness too. Faith has always been the backbone of our community, and I believe deeply in God’s power to heal. But faith and help are not enemies. Prayer and therapy can walk together. Church and counseling can sit at the same table. Medication does not cancel belief. Asking for help does not mean you’ve failed God—it often means you are finally listening to Him. This is why I believe the frequency must live on. My voice healed me. My voice carried me. My voice connected me to a community that held me when I didn’t know I needed holding. And now, I want your voice to be heard too. The work doesn’t end with this book. It continues in conversations at kitchen tables, in doctor’s offices, in church halls, in classrooms, in therapy rooms, and in moments when someone finally says, “I need help.” Healing does not happen overnight, but it always begins with honesty.
— 126 — If this book did nothing else, I pray it gave you permission—to speak, to rest, to ask, to cry, to heal, and to grow. The frequency does not go silent when the page ends. It carries forward in every life that chooses healing over hiding. And as long as we keep talking, listening, and loving out loud… the frequency will live on.
— 127 — NINA’S PLAYLIST OF SONGS (HERE) Nina’s Playlist 20 Songs Behind the Voice — The Soundtrack of Queen of the Midday This playlist is more than a collection of songs. Each selection reflects a piece of Nina’s journey—the little girl, the daughter, the mother, the woman, the radio personality, the survivor, and ultimately, the Queen of the Midday. 1. Gladys Knight & The Pips — “If I Were Your Woman” A song about complicated love, sacrifice, and wanting to be chosen. It connects with Nina’s lifelong questions about love and belonging.
— 128 — 2. Aretha Franklin — “Ain’t No Way” A powerful reflection of loving someone who may not be able to give you the kind of love you need in return. It speaks especially well to the complicated mother-daughter relationships in Nina’s story. 3. The O’Jays — “Family Reunion” Family is at the center of Nina’s story—its love, traditions, hierarchy, expectations, pain, and unbreakable connections. 4. Bill Withers — “Lean on Me” Long before Nina became the voice people depended on through the radio, she became the person others leaned on. That began when she was still a child. 5. The Emotions — “Don’t Ask My Neighbors” There has always been a difference between the Nina the public knows and the private woman carrying experiences most listeners could never see. 6. Chaka Khan — “I’m Every Woman” One of the defining songs for Nina’s story. Daughter. Mother. Caregiver. Broadcaster. Leader. Community advocate. Nina has spent a lifetime wearing many hats while continually proving herself. 7. Shirley Murdock — “As We Lay” This song belongs to Nina personally. During her college radio years, she would play the long version at the end of her nighttime show. Years later, Nina met Shirley Murdock, interviewed her, and developed a friendship with the woman whose music had been part of her journey. 8. Anita Baker — “Giving You the Best That I Got” Nina has spent much of her life giving her best—to her children, her mother, her career, her listeners, and her community.
— 129 — 9. Luther Vandross — “A House Is Not a Home” A reflection on the difference between having a place to live and having the emotional security, love, and belonging that truly make somewhere home. 10. Stephanie Mills — “Home” After everything Nina has experienced, “home” becomes more than a physical place. It represents finding where you belong and where you are free to be yourself. 11. Bobby Womack — “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” Behind a public life filled with voices, callers, music, and people can still be tremendous loneliness. This selection brings the blues and soul of that private experience into the playlist. 12. Tyrone Davis — “Can I Change My Mind” Nina’s story contains choices that she can now examine differently with the wisdom of time—particularly the love she walked away from when she was younger. 13. Patti LaBelle — “If Only You Knew” If only listeners knew what was happening when the microphone went off. If only employers knew what she carried. If only the people closest to her understood. This song represents everything behind the words Nina didn't always say. 14. Lenny Williams — “‘Cause I Love You” Raw and vulnerable, this song fits Nina’s complicated journey of learning what love means, recognizing unconditional love, and allowing herself to receive it. 15. Maze featuring Frankie Beverly — “We Are One” After decades together, Nina and her listeners have become part of one another’s stories. Shreveport did not simply listen to Nina— Nina became part of the community.
— 130 — 16. McFadden & Whitehead — “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” For the woman who was overlooked, underestimated, underpaid, and sometimes asked to do the work while others received the recognition—and kept going anyway. 17. Sounds of Blackness — “Optimistic” This represents the Nina people hear on the radio: encouraging listeners to get up, be thankful, keep believing, and remember that simply being here is something to be grateful for. 18. Mary Mary — “Can’t Give Up Now” Through surgeries, trauma, motherhood, caregiving, workplace battles, and personal disappointments, Nina continued moving forward even when stopping might have been easier. 19. The Winans — “Tomorrow” Faith has been one of Nina’s anchors. Her message reminds us not to wait until life falls apart to acknowledge God, gratitude, and the gift of another day. 20. Maze featuring Frankie Beverly — “Joy and Pain” The perfect closing song for Nina’s playlist. Her story has continually held both—sometimes at the exact same moment. As a little girl, one of the happiest moments of her life collided with one of her most painful. Yet Nina discovered how to carry both joy and pain without allowing either to silence her voice. The Soundtrack of Her Story These twenty songs follow the emotional journey of Queen of the Midday: family, survival, love, heartbreak, motherhood, sacrifice, radio, faith, community, healing, and legacy.
— 131 — NINA’S RESOURCES Mental Health Resources — Help Is Available If you or someone you love needs support, these resources are here for you. You are not alone. IMMEDIATE HELP 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 (24/7, confidential) Website: https://988lifeline.org Emergency: Call 911 if someone is in immediate danger MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT (NATIONAL) National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264)
— 132 — Website: https://www.nami.org Support for individuals, families, caregivers Mental Health America (MHA) Website: https://www.mhanational.org Screenings, education, and referrals MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT (LOUISIANA) Louisiana Crisis Hotline 1-833-898-6777 (24/7) Louisiana Department of Health — Behavioral Health Website: https://ldh.la.gov/behavioralhealth Services for adults, children, and families NAMI Louisiana Website: https://namilouisiana.org Local chapters, family education, peer support FAMILY & CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES EarlySteps Louisiana (Birth–3 intervention) Website: https://www.earlysteps.dhh.louisiana.gov Families Helping Families (FHF) Website: https://fhfoflouisiana.org Advocacy, education, and support for families with children with disabilities HOMELESSNESS & HOUSING SUPPORT National Coalition for the Homeless Website: https://nationalhomeless.org Louisiana Housing Corporation Website: https://www.lhc.la.gov
— 133 — Volunteers of America North Louisiana Website: https://www.voanorthla.org FOOD ASSISTANCE Feeding America Website: https://www.feedingamerica.org Find local food banks Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana Website: https://www.foodbanknla.org FAMILY & INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING Psychology Today – Therapist Finder Website: https://www.psychologytoday.com Open Path Psychotherapy Collective (low-cost therapy) Website: https://openpathpsychotherapycollective.org FINAL NOTE If you reached this page because you needed help, please know this: asking for support is an act of courage. Your story matters. Your healing matters. Your life matters. The frequency lives on — and so do you.
Dedication This book is dedicated first to my three children and my precious grandchildren. You have given me the solid, unconditional love I spent so much of my life searching for. Through you, I learned that love is not simply something we say, it is something we show, something we give, and something we live. You are among my greatest blessings, and you have given my life a meaning greater than any microphone, title, or accomplishment ever could. To my mother, you challenged me in ways that helped shape the woman I am today. Our journey has not always been easy, but through every challenge, every lesson, every tear, and every triumph, God still shined. Our story taught me strength, compassion, responsibility, forgiveness, and the power of continuing to love through life's complexities. To my dad, thank you for the beautiful spirit of reconnection. Life has taught me that sometimes love does not arrive when or how we expect it. Sometimes God allows us another season, another conversation, and another opportunity to find our way back to one another. I am grateful for ours. And finally, to the amazing community of listeners who have supported me throughout this incredible journey this book is dedicated to you, too. You reminded me that I mattered. And together, through the joy and the pain, we made Magic. With all my love and gratitude, Nina Montgomery Queen of the Midday