Opinion - Save WRFG

Far-left radio station faces going off the airwaves after nearly 42 years

It was Thanksgiving 1987 and the longest prison takeover in U.S. history was in progress in southeast Atlanta. Cuban detainees at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary had taken dozens of guards and staff hostage for 11 days to fight against deportation back to Cuba. Local and national media carried constant coverage of the standoff. But one media outlet provided an unfiltered line of communication to the outside world.

The left-of-center community radio station WRFG (89.3-FM) was an outlet inmates trusted to broadcast their views to the rest of the world without bias, according to current station manager Joan Baptist, as they called in to detail what was happening on the inside and outline their demands to law enforcement authorities.

This is unbought and unbossed radio at its best. And for nearly 42 years, this has been WRFG, or “Radio Free Georgia.” That’s how old the station is due to turn this July, if it can make it. Since American Tower Corporation purchased the tower that broadcasts WRFG’s up-to-100,000-watt signal last year, the new tower owner is less forgiving of late payments. The station needs help raising nearly $20,000 to help pay current and owed back rent. If WRFG fails to make the payments, the city could lose this bastion of democratic freedom.

WRFG began in 1973 in a space behind where El Myr is currently located — the station is now in the eclectic Little Five Points Community Center down the street — and embarked on an ongoing experiment in bootstrapping and free expression. Despite struggles along the way, the station thrived, broadcasting jazz, blues, bluegrass and unapologetically political programming. WRFG’s mission today nods to its roots, promising to provide facilities and gear programming to people “who continue to be denied free and open access to the broadcast media” and “suffer oppression or exploitation based upon class, race, sex, age or creed or sexual orientation.”

Every on-air personality behind the boards at WRFG is a volunteer, which means occasional dead air and dropped calls. But in an industry of computerized programming, generic playlists, and streaming services controlled by algorithm, the human fallibility and accessibility is refreshing.

It has also been a conduit for some of the coolest, quirkiest, and most radical voices on the airwaves. Lil Jon hosted a hip-hop show on the station in the mid-’90s. The station broadcasts historic speeches, from historian Howard Zinn to healer Dr. Jewel Pookrum. Current show hosts are characters, too, with a broad range of eccentric tastes and grassroots interests. If you’ve never tuned in on a Wednesday night to hear J.R. Langwell’s enthusiasm for bluegrass on “Peach State Festival” or Karen Marie Mason’s mix of music, culture, and politics on “Sunday Night Fiyah,” you’re doing radio wrong. The 50-part Living Atlanta series documented residents’ lives and the city’s history, and later became a must-read book.

The small station is totally counterintuitive to how the world of radio is run by corporate behemoths today. In the wake of the WRAS (88.5-FM) takeover by Georgia Public Broadcasting and a programming change that turned WCLK (91.9-FM) to elevator jazz, WRFG is one of the last outlets of independent radio on the terrestrial dial in Atlanta. It is everything an FM station in 2015 isn’t supposed to be: quirky, conscious, impassioned, principled, bold, and yes, amateur.

Last July, the tower from which WRFG has been licensed to broadcast its 100,000-watt station since 2007 was sold to ATC. The new agreement requires WRFG to pay its full rent every month, plus an incremental amount toward back rent that had accumulated. The total sum is roughly $9,000 a month, Baptist says. If the payments don’t keep up, the station could default on the agreement. Baptist says WRFG is grateful ATC is working with the station. (ATC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The station with the unique mission is no stranger to the financial strain that comes with being listener supported. Over the past several years, WRFG has upped its pledge drives from two per year for two weeks to three per year for three weeks. But it still hasn’t been enough.

There aren’t many stations left like WRFG in the entire nation. And its survival on the FM dial, in an age of mass media consolidation, is one of the primary reasons this city still has an alternative culture worth celebrating.

It is the only FM station that locally broadcasts such current affairs programming as the nationally syndicated “Democracy Now!” with Amy Goodman, Bay Area-based “Hard Knock Radio” with hip-hop activist Davey D, and an eclectic range of music and locally-hosted progressive views on LGBT issues, social justice, feminism and women’s health, and more.

Some of these selections you can find online. You can even stream WRFG online. But not everyone has crossed the digital divide. Thanks to the Internet and new technology, some of the views expressed on station programming are no longer drowned out by mass media. But WRFG provides signal through the noise for many. It is a piece of radical Atlanta’s history.

Several years ago during an annual pledge drive, long after the prison standoff, Baptist opened a curious-looking envelope. Some Atlanta Penitentiary prisoners sent a stack of treasury checks in increments of $5, $10, and $20, donated from their own savings. It’s not a bad idea.

To donate, visit WRFG.org.