MR.D'ALESSANDRO
Black Liberation Radio
 
 
 

For six years, Black Liberation Radio, a small unlicensed pirate radio station in Decatur, Illinois has courageously exposed police brutality, official misconduct, and government attacks on the black community. Broadcasting at 99.7 FM on a 15-watt transmitter from their home, Napoleon Williams, Mildred Jones, and their supporters have waged a campaign to challenge the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for their role in destroying and tearing apart black families, and specifically for the abduction and relocation of their own children, Unique Dream and Atrue Dream. BLR has also played an important role in building ties between their community and the largely white work force at the local Caterpillar Tractor plant during the bitter strikes there in recent years. BLR has consistentiy refused as a matter of principle to ask for a license from the Federal Communications Commission, arguing that they need no one's permission to exercise their freedom of speech.

The authorities have responded to this bold stand with a sustained series of police harassment and raids. Williams and Jones have faced trumped-up charges, fines, prison time, seized equipment, and have even last custody of their children. Yet they refuse to be silenced.

This Black Liberation Radio Solidarity Page is intended to spread news, information, and generate support for BLR. It has been assembled by an ad hoc group of activists from Chicago who feel that the attempts to silence BLR are a grave injustice and must be fought. Their situation is analogous to the current attempts to censor and control the internet, and are representative of the concurrent attacks on poor and black communities today on a variety of levels.

BLR Information, News, Solidarity

Background and History
Here you will find information on Decatur and BLR, as well as timelines and general background pieces.

Updates
A compilation of updates sent out by BLR supporters regarding the raids and repression, a well as news pieces from independent sources. You'll especially want to see the latest Chicago Ink piece below.

Mainstream News
What the capitalist press has to say regarding BLR.

Sokdarity!
How YOU can support BLR, and how you can connect to groups that already are doing support work.

Other Links
Connections to Pirate Radio and many other sites that are relevant to BLR.

Audio
Hear BLR speak out!

Rattling Cages in the Land of Lincoln:
Decatur's Black Liberation Radio Draws Fire From Local Law Enforcement
 

By Tracy "Jake" Siska & Dharma Pfeiffer

May 29, 1997

In the heart of the Land of Lincoln, a radio station that answers the phone simply as "Liberation" sends a signal that ripples out like a pebble in a pond. It purls over the town of Decatur, past the Macon County jail and the Decatur Police Department, to the County Court building and the local State's Attorney's office on Water Street.

Black Liberation Radio is an unusual spot on the dial by any measure. With only fifteen watts of broadcasting power, BLR is too small to be licensed by the FCC. It airs from Napoleon Williams' and Mildred Jones's living room on equipment roughly worth that of a modest home stereo system. Thats a far cry, from a licensed station with start-up costs that open at $100,000 and can reach into the millions in major markets. BLR's message is militant, populist - and openly disliked by the Peoria state's attorney and local law enforcement. The station has consistently railed against a host of local injustices, from police brutality and racism to the strikebreaking tactics of management at the local Staley and Bridgestone/Firestone plants.

BLR's unique brand of micro radio has cost them. WillIams, who was just bonded out of the County jail on three state charges of felony eavesdropping, reflects on his legal troubles.

"I feel like I've gone from maximum security to minimum security," he says.

This most recent arrest is the latest in a long pattern of intimidation for BLR, a pattern that smacks of tactics more comrnonly found in third world dictatorships - or in the Jim Crow south. The harassment raises serious questions about the right to circulate a militant and critical voice of opposition in a milieu - radio - that is increasingly dominated by corporate conglomerates with conservative, and even reactionary, political agendas.

Williams was first arrested only ten days after BLR began broadcasting in 1991. The couple say that, over the years, they've been the victims of repeated raids and harassment, unconfirmed allegations, uncooperative and unsympathetic public defenders, incompetent Department of Children and Family Services case workers, and a biased judiciary. The harassment has hurt them economically and emotionally: currently, two of their children are in state custody.

Decatur residents know that if you call BLR, your call will be broadcast; their listing in the phone book says "All phone calls recorded". For years, BLR has spoken with officials from the State's Attorney's office over the air, but until now no-one had been prosecuted for eavesdropping. That may account for State's Attorney Lawrence Fichter's reluctance to bring eveedropping charges directly through his office; instead, the case was handed over to the Illinois Attorney General.

Though felony eavesdropping is a class D felony, the least serious felony under Illinois law, the Attorney General's office took the unusual step of launching the Decatur Police on a three hour raid of BLR last month. On May 10, the police cordoned off a two block radius around the house, cut BLR's power. batter-rammed the front door, and entered in full riot gear with gas masks and automatic weapons.

This current round of legal woes stems from three phone calls that officials say Williams recorded and played over BLR without the consent of other parties to the convenation. All three conversations were with DCFS employees and dealt with their children's cases. "Can you give me one reason why I don't have my children?" Williams asked David Chesko, the DCFS caseworker assigned to their children, Atrue Dream and Unique Dream. Chesko replied, "No I can't give you a reason."

Williams believes the charges were concocted to seize DCFS reports and tapes of conversations with DCFS officials. Jones may also have been arrested in an attempt to seize the couple's baby boy Miracle: during the May 10 raid, a DCFS official waited outside to take the child.

"The poor people don't have a voice in this town," Jones explains, "If we don't speak out, who will? This is really the people's station. We're coming from the hurt and pain of black people, but anybody who tunes in who has a desire to be free will be inspired. We're motivated by bringing people together, not by how many more ad dollars we got this month compared to last month...and anybody can call and speak their minds. If they see the cops beating somebody up, they can call in right while it's happening and know they'll be live on the air. They can get people out there to see what's going on."

On the surface, BLR's story reads like any other case of small-town, low-tech lynching. But the potency of racial stereotypes - black man as dangerous predator, poor black woman as unfit mother - carry enough currency to undercut the state-wide or national support that is often necessary to enforce civility on hostile local officials. While support has trickled in from micro radio groups as far away as Australia, Jones says she understands why the town's only black lawyer would want to distance herself from people who challenge the powers that be.

"We've contacted Oprah, Sally-Jesse, Geraldo - they don't want to hear about us. Every lawyer you can name, they know about us." Racism, she says, is only part of the problem. "They don't want people to know how easy it is to do this."

"If we were just another jukebox on the dial, we probably wouldn't receive this kind of harassment," says Williams. "When you have people calling in talking about a speed trap, or city council, or this corrupt judicial system, when you get on them and say 'Why are you crazy for Nike sneakers? Nike sneakers are put together by slave labor, now they want to stop you. I am the descendant of slaves. I see Black Liberation Radio as a New African drum used to tell the truth. Slaves were killed for drumming, because their communicating was a threat to the slave master."

Williams and Jones say they look forward to the day when people learn to create 'pirate' television as well as micro radio, which is spreading globally as an alternative to mainstream media.

"This is the Land of Lincoln," Williams says. "A lot of people don't know that Lincoln said he didn't care if the slaves were ever freed. They're so filled with the myths they've been told. A few miles down the river a man named Elijah Lovejoy started up a newspaper to tell people the truth about slavery. He was hung. His printing press went into the Mississippi river. We feel we're only a continuation of the struggle."

printed in Chicago Ink, 57068. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, e-mail:
jkw3@midway.uchicago.edu

All material on these pages are anti-copyright, please reproduce. Many thanks to the folks at BURN! for providing us with the space. Comments, questions, etc. are welcome: chill@burn.ucsd.edu

last updated...August 19, 1997