The station manager of WAQY-AM radio in Birmingham, Alabama became the first to urge listeners to boycott record stores and bookstores that sold music and memorabilia of The Beatles, starting an American backlash against the British rock group that was preparing to make a tour of the United States. Manager Tommy Charles told reporters, "We just felt it was so absurd and sacreligious that something ought to be done to show that they cannot get away with this sort of thing." On March 4th, John Lennon had been quoted by a British interviewer as saying "We're more popular than Jesus now", and the statement had largely gone unnoticed until it was reprinted in the July issue of the American teen magazine Datebook. On July 28, Charles and disc jockey Doug Layton stopped playing the group's records and announced plans for a bonfire of records on July 30. Other radio stations joined in the boycott, including in South Africa and Spain before Lennon made an apology when the group arrived in Chicago on August 11.