Airwaves & Liberty

The email below is from Jim Ellinger via the Grassroots Radio Coalition list. KAZI is a Pacifica affiliate.

Greetings from the AMARC MENA conference here in Rabat, Morocco. KAZI was never very involved with the national community radio scene, but was a good radio group serving well the local Austin African-American community. jim ellinger

Community Radio Loses Hero, Dr. John Warfield
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 10:53:37 -0400

Hello Friends-
Thanks to Linda Lewis for forwarding the sad news of John Warfield’s passing. The email finds me at the AMARC MENA community radio conference here in Rabat, Morocco. (AMARC is the Canadian NGO that serves as the World Assocation of Community Radio Broadcasters.)

I too consider myself as part of the larger KAZI Family. I was just one of scores of Austinites who crowded into the original KAZI air room, when the “Voice of Austin” signed on to Austin airwaves at 88.7FM for the very first time.

I know firsthand that the station was the result of the tireless work of the Warfields and many others in Austin’s African-American community. The station really struggled during it’s earliest years, but never faultered. Now the station, is very much the Voice of Austin; with strong management, a great range of programming not heard elswhere on the dial and significant community support.

While hardly the only successful project of the Warfields, KAZI will certainly be one their most public, valuable and enduring legacies.

Since my early days on KAZI, I have carried on the banner of community radio, putting KOOP on the air, working with survivors in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, and evacuees in the Houston AstroDome. I have now traveled even further from the Lone Star State; working on a radio theatre project at a CR in Mozambique, and this week working with NGOs, media and human rights groups here in the Middle East/North Africa region.

I will return to Austin knowing that one of the founders, one of the visionaries of community radio has passed onto the airwaves.

Thank you John Warfield,
jim ellinger
AMARC MENA Conference
Rabat, Morocco
October 28th, 2007

Original Message:
Subject: Community Loses Hero, Dr. Warfield

JOHN WARFIELD: 1936-2007
Community loses one of its heroes
Professor fought for equality on campus and off.

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF — Saturday, October 27, 2007 — Whether it was teaching students in his classroom or challenging the administration at the University of Texas, John Warfield lived life as an unapologetic crusader for racial and social justice, family and colleagues said Friday.

Warfield died Thursday of Parkinson’s disease. He was 71 and had been residing at an assisted living facility in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Friends and family said Warfield left a lasting imprint on the university by helping to ease racial tensions left over from the 1960s and by igniting pride and instilling knowledge in his students.

Believing that education was the best way to derail segregation, he helped found Austin’s first black community radio station, KAZI-FM, from his living room in 1982.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/10/27/1027warfield.html