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MLK vs the Radio
(Historic 1967 Speech to National Association of Radio Announcers )
by Davey D
As we talk about the plight of Black Radio and the bill proposed by Congressman John Conyers HR 848.. We thought we’d take a walk down memory lane and listen to what Dr Martin Luther King had to say about the role BLACK RADIO played in furthering the Civil Rights struggle..It was a speech given in August of 1967 in Atlanta, Ga.
We included in this video, remarks made by freedom fighter H Rap Brown who talks about the role of entertainers and how they are often manipulated and used against the community by the White Power structure.
We also have excerpts from Minister Farrakhan talking about BLACK RADIO in his historic 1980 speech given to radio deejays at the Jack the Rapper Convention in Atlanta. He talked about how Black Radio deejays are used as agents to dumb down our thinking. What’s interesting to note is that Farrakhan’s speech came 13 years after King in the same month and to a similar body of attendess. The time between King’s speech and Farrkhan’s speech we saw so much of Black radio dismantled and so many of the disc jockeys silences and depoliticized. Farrakhan talks about how station owners went out of their way to hire deejays who would talk jive to the people and do very little to upfift them. Its a trend that many say still exist today.
We round it out with remarks on radio by Hip Hop activists Rosa Clemente made during the historic protest against Hot 97 in spring 2005 and Chuck D during 2Pac‘s Birthday celebration in June of 2005 also in Atlanta. Rosa notes how the people who control NY’s number one Hip Hop station are 7 executives all over 40 who are white men. She accusses them and their deejays of peddling a type of mind drug to the community.
Chuck’s remarks are telling as he notes how elders who are heading up these stations are afarid to grow up and be adults and how they’ve become frightened to speak to their own offspring.
Enjoy.. all these people drop some serious jewels.