Founded in 1945 by local sports hero Melvin Reid and his wife Betty Reid, Reid’s Records was one of the first Black-owned record shops in California and one of the few shops of any kind where African-American music could be purchased before the 1960s. Operating out of the record store, Mel and his uncle Paul (Cud) Reid also started and hosted the widely popular Religious Gems Radio Broadcast, which was the first of its kind in the Bay Area. Together they became two of the most successful African-American gospel promoters on the west coast during the 1950s & 60s. Generations of Reid cousins grew up behind of the counter of Reid’s. The Reid family were descendants of the pioneering Black families who first began arriving in the Bay Area before the Civil War. 

www.berkeleyplaques.org

2019