The report below is fron Hep Ingham, a longtime activist to return community radio to KPFT.

In addition to the report below Hep also told me that one of the programs pre-empted for the MLK special was the syndicated music program "World Cafe" with David Dye. This premption in order to celebrate MLK Day was met with particular animosity by some listeners whose objections Hep believed had a racial basis.

Hep said, " I should've mentioned that the station pre-empted David Dye's World Cafe, which pissed off all the bubba crackers. Racism is alive and well (but not for long) in KPFT! "

Lyn

http://savewbai.tao.ca

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Date sent: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:33:59 -0600
From: Hep Ingham

We tried to bring the feed from DC, Black Voices for Peace, but it was so screwed up the iGM switched to Lavar Burton reading King.

Then Miles Willies came on and did a combo discussion with civil rights activists from the 50s-60s mixed with period jazz. His 3 year old son was in the studio and could be heard once asking to go potty. Unbelievably great community radio!

And what was the response? The hard core music people called up and canceled their subscriptions. Good f**kin' riddance! I looked at the Sept pledge drive and 7% of the listeners gave 39% of the money. All of these people were in the "Leadership Circle", the small group of big donors who got free CDs and invited to backyard partys. Now, is that community radio?

Stephen [Brown] is right, these days of pandering to big shots who want to hear Lyle Lovett 24/7 are over and we need to get them out. If they want to pull their bucks so be it. We organized to get the oligarchy out we can organize to get new subscribers. The sell is much easier to bring people in.

So, no more waiting, make the changes and let's get on with making these community stations!

hep

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