Urban Unrest

26 November 2007 | Pacifica | Ernesto Aguilar

This piece, published in the New York Daily News, highlights Tuesday’s Pacifica Radio Archives’ 19-hour fundraiser. It’ll be broadcast on KPFT from 6 a.m. to midnight. Please make sure to support PRA during this vital show.

WBAI mines Pacifica Radio Archives’ rich 50,000-tape library

By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, November 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

Radio history, like so much of our popular culture history, has been destroyed far more often than it’s been preserved.

That makes the Pacifica Radio Archives particularly valuable, and the five Pacifica stations, including WBAI (99.5 FM), will spend Tuesday broadcasting a small, rich sample of the 50,000-tape archive.

Yes, since it’s Pacifica, it will be history as told by alternative and sometimes unpopular voices, like the Black Panthers. And yes, the 19-hour broadcast, 4 a.m.-9 p.m., will be yet another in WBAI’s seemingly endless round of fund-raisers, because broadcasting alternative voices means getting minimal support from traditional sources.

But one of the things that’s striking about the sixth annual Archives special is how many of the voices that seemed radical and even threatening a few years ago now sound as if they are only asking for what’s fair and just.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela will be heard on this show, as will Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, and Gloria Steinem, an early voice for modern feminism.

WBAI also has a strong arts component, and tomorrow’s programs include a special on “The John Coltrane Legacy.”

“Nowhere else does this powerful documentation of United States history, culture and art exist,” says Brian DeShazor, director of the Archives. “It’s story telling at its best, which gives us a keen sense of how we’ve come to be who we are as a nation.”

Specific specials through the day include “The Power of African Women,” “Conscientious Objectors from Vietnam to Iraq,” re-enactments of taped Richard Nixon White House conversations, “The Black Panther Legacy,” “Where Were You in
1968?”, “Women of the World Speak Out,” “Malcolm X,” and a “No Nukes” reunion.

Other voices include Angela Davis, Ossie Davis, Rob Reiner, Robert F. Kennedy, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, Ayn Rand, Allen Ginsberg and Harry Shearer.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!