Local
Hattie Leeper, Charlotte’s ‘Chatty Hatty,’ helped open the airwaves to Black women
Leeper, Charlotte’s first Black female DJ, began at WGIV-AM as a teenager and built an 18-year broadcasting career promoting prominent artists. She died Oct. 13 at 98, after later teaching broadcasting at Johnson C. Smith University and Gaston College.
Hattie Leeper, the pioneering Charlotte broadcaster known to listeners as “Chatty Hatty,” died Tuesday, Oct. 13, at age 98.
Leeper became Charlotte’s first Black female disc jockey after beginning at WGIV-AM at 14 as an assistant. The station, which played rhythm and blues and gospel, became the setting for her broadcasting career after she filled in for an absent staff member.
Over 18 years in radio, Leeper played and promoted artists including Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner and Patti LaBelle. She also booked performers, wrote and produced music, and owned a record store.
After leaving radio, Leeper taught at Johnson C. Smith University and Gaston College. She retired in 1998 as chair of Gaston’s broadcasting department.
Her honors included induction into the Black Radio Hall of Fame in 1989 and the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2025. Her career spanned broadcasting, music and education in the Charlotte region, at a time when Black women faced barriers to entry in radio.