How The Million Man March Changed Black Radio Forever

Where is my Black Radio?

What is black radio? Is it just music?

What makes a Black person relevant being on these precious sacred airwaves?

I humbly say to you that our Black Radio was taken from us, snatched away from us, thrown in a garbage pale and taken to the dumpster and shredded never to be heard from again. What you hear on the radio post 1996 is not real authentic black radio.

Yes we all know things must evolve and our business is one of constant change, but in this writers opinion this was a deliberate plot.

I have alot of silly friends who think that when I talk like this that I am bitter. It bothers me that they can't see that Black Radio has been punked. Black radio is the key to getting information to the black audience. It is a life line that has been cut.

The most recent saddest case was the way that the legendary WRKS 98.7 Kiss in New York was taken off the air in 2012 after 30 years of being a major Iconic symbol of great black radio.

I remember visiting the New York  offices of WBLS in August of 2007 talking with Deon Livingston and Vinny Brown, and Deon said, "with the PPM rating system, it will either be BLS or Kiss that goes away". Did it happen? Yes it did.


I was reflecting on On February 8, 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  While the Act had significant impact throughout the communications industry, the impact on broadcasters was profound, and is still being debated.  The Act made changes for broadcasters in several major areas:

• Lengthened license renewals to 8 years for both radio and TV, and eliminated the "comparative renewal"
• For radio, eliminated all national caps on the number of radio stations in which one party could have an attributable interest and increased to 8 stations the number one party could own in the largest radio markets.  

This was the Death nail! This is what alot of us did not see coming until we were deep into this thing.

So what does the Million Man March have to do with this? 

In 1995 the largest gathering of Black men in the history of America was held in Washington DC. The Million Man March. It was the greatest display of black men loving each other and caring for each other in a way that had never been expressed before in the history of America lead by The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan which posed a problem for the Government of the United States.

Black radio DJ's in every major city in America rallied our black men in cities across America to urge men to get on the bus and travel to Washington DC on October 16th to fall in love with each other and stop the killing in our cities and towns. It was the great beggining of our new future. Producing unity and love among us.

Again The Power of Black Radio was exsposed:

Then look at what happend the very next year in 1996. The power of Black Radio was exsposed for the last time and the people who are diametrically opposed to our rise went to work to make sure we could never come together like that again. If they start loving eachother we can't fill the prisons with them....

In that very next year in 1996, after the Million Man March, Bill Clinton is signing off on a bill that allows corporate radio to buy up  black stations all over this country in 1996. One year after our great mobilization effort in 1995 to rally black people in America. So you have to ask the question, was this a coincidence that it happened like this? Read what a US Senator said below:

STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON

    Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a prepared 
statement for the record, if I could have that entered. I will 
just make a couple of comments.
    The first is that the country is now on the eve of the most 
important set of communications decisions in years, and I think 
it is important to understand what is really at issue before 
the Federal Communications Commission. It seems to me what is 
being debated now is that the media conglomerates are saying, 
trust us, we do not need ownership rules to do what is right. 
They are saying this despite the fact that the radio changes 
that are along the lines of these FCC changes have produced a 
wave of fake localism.

Syndication floods black radio:

So in 1996, the syndicated Tom Joyner Morning show rolls out on black radio stations all accross the country replacing  morning men (leaders) in their respective cities and now they have been taken off the air. In the top major markets to small towns they disappeared from the radio. Now mind you this did not happen in White radio. In both formats Urban adult and hip hop they took the leaders off the air and made black people believe that the people that you use to listen were not good enough to talk to you anymore, so we will pipe in people from another city to tell you whats going on.

Now to Mr. Joyner's defense, I don't know if what I am saying has crossed his brilliant mind before. I love Tom, he is and will always be one of my radio heroes.

However, Tom Joyner's show was the catalyst to make syndication in black radio something we accepted as our lot in life. People in black radio would always say things are changing you have to accept it, this is the way it is. But you never asked why? I mean not a surface why, but the REAL why? Why is this happening to us? Why are the most creative people on the planet being taken off the radio? Why isn't the same thing happening to white radio?

 So from 1996 to 2008 was the heavy dismantling period with the Steve Harvey show and others added to the mix during that time. I just thought of this the other day and it hit me and it was so clear to me. 

Some of you may disagree with me, but it is worth taking a look at. I am talking about the timeline of events and why things are the way they are with us right now.

Today you hardly know what the hell is gloing on in your city or town. Radio has been watered down and homoginized so much you could hook up a computer in the program directors bedroom and let it run...lol.

When the dissenting voices were silenced our Black communities got silenced. You could not call into the morning show anymore and talk about the shooting in your community or the hot school board race or the racist comment the Mayor said at the city council meeting that offended the community. We lost our ability to organize. 

They even brainwashed us to think that black people don't care about the news, just play music. Black people don't care about whats going on in the world unless you are talking about a stupid episode of Atlanta housewives and the program director say's "yeah now thats what I'm talking about, good show".

 You can't rally the troops any more because the SOUL of Black Radio was taken away when the voices were exiled to find work at the home depot or the Sears men's department  because YOUR Beloved Morning Man was assasinated by an FCC plot that was hatched after the Million Man March. You can take it or let it alone, but you have to look at this as not being a coincidence. Not at all.

Who Can  talk to the youth of Ferguson today on the radio?

TODAY CORPORATE CONTROLLED BLACK RADIO IS COMPLICIT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR YOUTH. WE ARE SINGLE HANDIDLY LEADING THEM TO THE SLAUGHTER WITH A DEATH STYLE PROGRAMMING PHILOSOPHY.

Black Radio has abandonded the poor and the weak in our communities. We are suffering unspeakable horror in the hood, in the schools and that brother or sister that use to be on the radio that really cared is gone now.

Look I don't know if you who are reading this agree with me or not, but I have to say it because time is at hand, and more of the same like you saw in Ferguson is coming. What role is so called Black radio going to play in the future?

I say the only way you can do it now is by creating our own media. We must use the digital technology in which we are the number one consumers of, and reach back out to our people.

We can do this!

DON'T GIVE UP!

WE MUST BRING BACK BLACK RADIO ON THE DIGITAL.....THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE ON FM!

Let me know what you think? Let's get back in the fight!!     Leave a comment: