Release: Greenville, SC Gears Up to Launch Groundbreaking New Radio Station

For Immediate Release; June 6th, 2007:

Greenville, SC Gears Up to Launch Groundbreaking New Radio Station

National and international civil rights champions, farmworkers, and community broadcasters gather to build low power FM radio station with Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, June 8th-10th, 2007

Contact: Efia Nwangaza, mxgrm@aol.com, 864-901-8627
Contact: Siyade Gemechisa, siyade@prometheusradio.org, 717-201-8825

Hundreds of national and international civil rights champions, community organizers, radio enthusiasts, and more will gather in Greenville, South Carolina, June 8th-10th. They will partner with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement for Self-Determination (MXGRM) to build an entire low power FM community radio station, WMXP-LP/95.5 FM, over the course of one long weekend. Local volunteers and regional radio experts and pioneers will take part in this three day event, and flip the switch to launch WMXP, Sunday, June 10th. Registration is open now, at /wmxp_registration.html.

Facilitated by national radio advocacy experts at the Prometheus Radio Project, the entire group will work together and assemble the technology necessary to operate the full-fledged FM radio station, WMXP-LP. On the evening of June 10th, after a weekend of doing everything from soldering studio audio cables to tuning and raising the broadcast antenna, the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination will power-up the station for the first time. WMXP-LP/95.5 FM, will go on-air as Greenville's only non-commercial, grassroots, community-based and volunteer-operated radio station.

"WMXP-LP, the Malcolm X Experience, The Voice of the People, is radio of, by, and for the people, not profits," says Efia Nwangaza, co-coordinator for the radio barnraising and the founder of Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination. "The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGRM) is looking forward to working with Prometheus, and the diversity of regional, national, and international volunteers, who are coming to town to join us in building the station. We are bolstered by the expertise folks from regional civil-rights and Black-led radio hubs will bring. They will all work with local youth and adults as we learn how to maintain and operate the station."

More than 40 radio-related workshops will be conducted over the weekend