This press release has been making the e-rounds. Glad to find the news this morning.

WMXP-LP  /  95.5 FM
The Voice of the People
Community Radio for Greenville, South Carolina
321 W. Antrim Drive,  P.O.Box 16102, Greenville, SC 29607
Tel. 864-239-0470;  Fax  864-242-2560  

E-mail  mxgrm@aol.com
 
   
For Immediate Release

Contact: 

Efia Nwangaza, mxgrm@aol.com,
864-901-8627

Siyade Gemechisa, siyade@prometheusradio.org,           
215-727-9620 ext.505
 
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Prometheus Radio Project Build Greenville Community Radio Station

Groups Across the South Organize to Build Rare Civil Rights Radio Station

Greenville, SC   June 8-10
 
GREENVILLE, S.C.—WMXP-LP (95.5 FM) is Greenville’s only non-commercial, volunteer, grassroots, community owned and operated radio station.

 
“Over the weekend of June 8-10, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGRM) and Prometheus, like Habitat for Humanity, will build a community radio station from the ground up and train local community members to maintain and operate it.  We will bring together hundreds of local and regional volunteers to build an entire, brand new, low power, FM community radio station,” said Efia Nwangaza, co-coordinator for the radio barnraising.

 
More than 40 workshops will be conducted over the weekend; from hands-on building and maintenance, programming and production, to management.  “‘WMXP-LP, the Malcolm X Experience, The Voice of the People’ is radio of, by, and for the people not profits,” she added.
 
From April 10-18, to help recruit volunteers and build momentum for Greenville’s “radio barnraising,” Prometheus media activists Siyade Gemechisa and Emily Geddes will travel throughout the South. They will make stops in North Carolina, Georgia, eastern Tennessee, as well as South Carolina. 

Spreading the news of Prometheus Radio Project’s eleventh collaborative radio station barn raising, and Greenville and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s first, Prometheus will connect with dozens of social justice groups, media activists and partners in the struggle to put the people’s voices on the people’s airwaves. The tour will also provide an opportunity to meet with organizers up to a twelve-hour driving radius of the Greenville barn raising and have face-to-face conversations about media issues that effect almost all groups involved in social activism.

“The tour is special, not just because the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for regional supporters to build a station and be there for its first moments on the FM dial, but because the people who meet with us will serve as the regional support network for a newborn station, growing, empowering and supporting its community,” said Gemechisa, Prometheus event director and major co-coordinator for the barnraising. 

“There is no limit to what positive changes can be made when this community builds an outlet for self expression, to share its talents, to discuss and impact the issues it is facing.”
 
With increased media consolidation, many southern community groups like the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement have found tremendous difficulty in getting their voices on the airwaves. 

“There are particular issues of importance to the South that many groups look forward to discussing – lack of public transportation, for example, is a recurring one. Social justice groups will have a space for public discourse on this and other issues through their own community radio station,” continued Emily Geddes, a longtime Prometheus volunteer and partner.

“This barnraising also has the potential to catalyze the southern social justice network around the upcoming opportunities to launch new outlets on the FM dial,” she said.
 
Prometheus Radio Project, based in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, works to build and expand access to community radio in the U.S. and around the world.  Prometheus workshops are different in every town – and are tailored to a communities’ needs!  Prometheus has built radio stations from New Hampshire to Mexico to Tanzania, East Africa – with farmworkers, civil and human rights organizations, community groups, youth collectives, and more.  For more information on the upcoming tour and radio barnraising, contact Siyade Gemechisa or Emily Geddes at the email and telephone number listed above.  Visit here to plug into our work!
 
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is a coalition of individuals and organizations committed to defending and advancing the human rights of New Afrikan people.  It promotes capacity building for community self-determination and empowerment through the use of technology and the arts from a human rights framework.  Visit here for more information.