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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Human Rights Radio Back on the Air in Springfield! |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mike Townsend, posted by P. Riismandel
Email: paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified!) |
21 Mar 2001
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The pioneering Springfield, IL microradio broadcaster Mbanna Kantako was raided by the FCC and local authorities twice last year, after operating his unlicensed Human Rights Radio for more than ten years. I just received word from his frequent spokesperson Mike Townsend, a University of Illinois-Springfield professor, that Kantako is back on the air. |
KANTAKO RISES AGAIN
Riddle: If a black cat has 9 lives, how many lives does a Black
Panther have?
Answer: We don't know, but human rights activist Mbanna Kantako is
determined to find out.
Kantako, frequently referred to as the Father of the Micro-Radio
Movement, returned his micro station, Human Rights Radio (106.5 FM) to the
air on Tuesday, March 20. Those of you who have followed the Kantako
chronicles, for the past 13½ years, know that he has been raided and ripped
off-the-air by the FCC Thought Police, and their local armed forces (called
Multi-Jurisdictional SWAT Teams), two times in the last six months. Well,
"He's Baaaack!" and once again in violation of a federal court order not to
broadcast.
Kantako has steadfastly declared that the United Nation's
Declaration of Human Rights guarantees ordinary citizens the right to
communicate with their fellow citizens and that giant media corporations,
with the support of their bought and sold politicians, have usurped that
right from the people. Defending himself at the last hearing in federal
court, he demanded that Human Rights Monitors from the International
Community be invited by the court as observers at his hearings. The court,
predictably, denied his demand. Kantako, by returning to-the-air for a
third time, has put the ball back in the FCC's court. General Colin
Powell's son, Michael, plucked (with Daddy's help) the political plum of a
job as new head of the FCC in the illegitimately elected Bush
Administration. The volley is now his. Let's see how he plays the blind
Black Panther.
What did Kantako do during the few months he was off-the-air, you
ask. Well he certainly didn't sulk around feeling depressed and sorry for
himself. Quite the contrary. What he did was put together a weekly
half-hour cable access TV program entitled Raw African Power (R.A.P.) which
began it's run on local Channel 4 a few weeks ago.
Most people don't know that Kantako has run a summer school for
low-income youth for the past 15 years, known as the Marcus Garvey School of
Human Rights; it's run by neighborhood volunteers and university students
working together. Seven years ago he started the Senseia Kankaji Human
Rights Club, an after-school mentoring program for students who attend the
summer school.
Inspired by the oral history method of teaching utilized by "Griots"
in African societies, Kantako has written over 200 rap songs in the past two
years, dealing with human rights, social injustice, black history, etc. He
teaches these songs to the children in the summer school and mentoring
program. They, in turn, perform the songs on the cable access TV program
and the audience learns the lessons through them. Over the years, Kantako
has established contacts around the country and now some of these people are
taking copies of Kantako's shows to their own cable access channels for
showing. Kantako has enough songs in hand to do 50 more TV programs.
Well, that's one thing he did. Another was to transfer more than
1000 of his old micro-radio programs from cassette tape to CD's, which will
make his 24/7 broadcast life a little easier now that he is back on-the-air.
So, there's your update. You can reach Kantako at 113 N. 5th St.,
Springfield, IL. 62702. Phone # is: 217-789-0038. E-mail is:
Kantako (at) warpnet.net
He would like to hear from
you.
Mike Townsend
Mtown1 (at) uis.edu
217-206-7574 |
See also:
http://www.mediageek.org
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