KAZI Katrina relief fundraiser
Here at Radio Survivor we like to say happy birthday to community radio stations. It is easier to do this if the signal puts its date of birth on its About web page, as has station KAZI-FM in Austin, Texas:
“KAZI was the dream of the late Dr. John Warfield, professor of African-American Studies at the University of Texas. His vision was to create a noncommercial station that served the needs of the African-American community.
With generous funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and loaned tower space from LBJ-S Broadcasting, KAZI began transmitting on August 29, 1982.”
Thus is KAZI 31 years old on this day, the oldest community station in Austin. Warfield was an interesting guy—a professor of African-American studies and educational psychology at UT Austin. The John L. Warfield Center for African and African American studies carries on his work.
“The University of Texas was not an educational institution known for its social reform, cultural inclusion, nor academic diversity,” Warfield’s online biography notes (this is probably bit of an understatement). “Dr. Warfield was not afraid to present these shortcomings to UT administrators and members of the university community to examine and foster immediate transformations to improve the overall quality of education for all University of Texas students and faculty.”
Today KAZI runs tons of great music: RnB, Soul, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Reggae, and Zydeco, plus Democracy Now! and the City of Austin’s weekly City Council meeting. Happy b-day KAZI!
