From October 1-25, WBAI will be in fund-drive mode, in what is considered to be a make-or-break fund-raiser for the beloved 53 year old radio station that is responsible for the very political and cultural ground on which so many of us walk! A caller to a recent WBAI Report to the Listener, summarized WBAI when he described his travels across country this summer, while listening to his car radio: “BAI is so unique…there is nothing out there that compares with it.”
Reports of WBAI’s death “have been greatly exaggerated.” Despite a terrible year financially that saw us perilously close to losing our transmitter signal and included a move to a much smaller space–WBAI is beginning to recover. We have a new home in Brooklyn and are starting to catch up with bills. Yet the the future remains uncertain and there are some on the Pacifica National Board (Pacifica is WBAI’s parent network and owns its license) who want to take WBAI off the air (through “leasing it out”) in order to cover expenses. The best way to make sure this does not happen and that WBAI will not only survive but thrive, is for the October fund drive to be a success. So I am asking you to pledge as if the fate of the station depended on it–because it does.
I am also writing to you about the feminist program I have produced on WBAI for 11 years–the only “terrestrial radio” program devoted to feminist issues in the tri-state area: Joy of Resistance: Multicultural Feminist Radio at WBAI, which will be fund-raising between 9 and 11 pm this coming Wednesday night (Oct. 2). For 11 years we have brought you in-depth coverage of every feminist issue you can imagine–from the long and winding history of women slowly winning the right to control our reproduction, and the attacks against this basic freedom coming from the Right wing in so many forms–to the ongoing fights for equal pay, equal opportunity at work, affordable daycare–the right to walk freely in the world without fear of sexual assault… Joy of Resistance brings these issues and so many related ones and it gives you not only the immediacy of breaking stories, but the whole history of struggle behind those stories, the time-lines of emancipation, often speaking with the women who originally took the lead in these battles– as well as women on the front lines today.–and letting you know the ways that YOU can join the action and help create the tomorrows of our history.
Women need this kind of in-depth coverage–and men need to hear it also. Joy of Resistance covers the ongoing and worldwide struggle for full equality of women that is being waged in every country and culture on the planet. We need WBAI to survive and thrive–and we need Joy of Resistance to continue to bring you the highest and deepest level of feminist coverage.
But the Pacifica/WBAI management–in its effort to survive–is currently re-evaluating all of the station’s programming. Our program–as well as all others–will, no doubt be under scrutiny in this fund drive–and it is imperative that we show station management that there IS a feminist audience that will financially support Joy of Resistance! I am asking you to show that feminist support during this coming Wednesday between 9 and 11 pm.
If you pledge to WBAI this Wednesday, October 2, 9-11 pm, or on October 16, 9-11 pm (when we will again be doing a fund-raising show), you will make a very important contribution to keeping feminist radio on the air. The pledge number will be (516) 620-3602, You can hear the program in most of New York State, New Jersey & Connecticutt at 99.5 FM and you can stream it from anywhere in the world at wbai.org.
We are also offering those who pledge some great premiums–some of the best radio and the most in-depth feminism that you will ever hear:
THE MAIN WBAI PREMIUM:
WBAI is offering all listeners who pledge, a thumb-sized flash drive–black with a silver Pacifica/WBAI logo–that is loaded with amazing high quality recordings of The 100 best Speakers on Pacifica over the last 10 years. Speakers include: Alice Walker, Amy Goodman, Bill McKibben, Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff, Cornell West, Eduardo Galleano, Russell Simmons, Eve Ensler, Studs Terkes, Angela Davis, Rachel Maddow, Robert Reich, Edward Said and many many more. There will also be a flash-drive titled “Best of WBAI”–a 30-item collection of some of the highlights of this alternative non-commercial radio’s output.
…and a special JOY OF RESISTANCE’ PREMIUM…”THE REAL HISTORY OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT”
I have gone out on a limb to get permission from our new Program Director to offer a strong feminist premium. Joy of Resistance will be one of the few shows in the fund-drive to have its own premium–in addition to the station-wide ones. I need you to back me up by pledging your support for the fabulous and important collection I have assembled.
“THE REAL HISTORY OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT” is a collection on a flash drive (with the WBAI-Pacifica logo), containing some of the best work of Joy of Resistance over the past 11 years.You will not be able to get this kind of collection anywhere else. Below is a partial list of what will be included–
“THE REAL HISTORY OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT” contains:
**The Civil Rights Movement and the Roots of Women’s Liberation–A 70 minute classic in which seven women–Black and White–who worked within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) tell the little known story of how the second wave of feminism was birthed from within SNCC! There is no other radio treatment of this material!
**Connections between the Civil Rights March of 1963–and the founding of the National Organization for Women. Another untold story! An investigation & conversation with Zoharah Simmons, Maretta Short and Fran Luck featuring readings from the works of Pauli Murray, Betty Friedan and William P. Jones.
**Promise and Betrayal: Voices from the Struggle for Women’s Emancipation, 1776-1920: A play by Carol Hanisch. The complete recording of the Joy or Resistance production, with original music by Carol Hanisch, arranged by Carol Hanish and Bev Grant; based on the actual speeches and writings of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others active in the struggle for the vote.
**A Critique of “Makers”–Original Radical Feminists Kathie Sarachild, Carol Hanisch along with Kathy Scarbrough critique the PBS series that purports to be the last word on “the women’s movement.”
**The Real History of the Miss America Pageant Protest of 1968 The protest in Atlantic City that put the Women’s Liberation Movement on the map.
**Recordings from the first Abortion Speak Out–organized by Redstockings in 1969 Abortion was illegal in the U.S. when these women risked arrest to admit publicly that they’d had one.
**Abortion as a Human Right: An original production covering the history of reproductive rights. .
**Remembering Shulie–Two interviews with peers of movement pioneer Shulamith Firestone who died last August. Kathie Sarachild and Jo Freeman, who both worked with Firestone in the early days of the movement, contribute both moving tributes and stories of the real history of the birth of the movement–that you’ve never heard before!
**A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s by Stephanie Coontz. An interview with the author examining the situation of women just before the beginning of the Second Wave–and what changed.
**The Feminist Music Extravaganza!: A feminist history trip through MUSIC. Folk, pop, rock, reggae, punk, rap (and more) feminist music hits over the decades!
**Occupy Wall Street and the fight against sexism A 10 minute feature, chosen to represent WBAI as part of the Pacifica National Broadcast of 2011: Women of OWS share their experiences.
**Feminist Comedy: Comics Wanda Sykes, Elaine Boosler and Lisa Koch make us laugh our butts off (I threw this in just for fun!)
SO NOW THAT YOU’VE SEEN WHAT WE’RE OFFERING–HERE’S HOW TO PLEDGE
The #1 priority of this drive is to gain 3000 sustaining members (“WBAI Buddies”) so that WBAI will have a secure source of income and will interrupt regular programming less often to raise funds.You can become a Buddy for as little as $10. a month–through an automatic, painless and totally secure monthly payment from your checking account or credit card. If you become a Buddy during a Joy of Resistance program (Oct. 2 & 16th) you will receive ALL of the Above premiums (The 100 Speakers Collection, The Best of WBAI PLUS The Real History of the Feminist Movement.) You will also receive a WBAI tote bag, a subscription to the Nation Magazine and discounts on local events.
These premiums can also be ordered separately at the following pledge levels:
$180. for the 100 Speakers Collection
$50. for Best of WBAI
$75. for the Real History of the Feminist Movement
But ANY amount you can contribute will be appreciated and is important!!
The Pledge Phone Number is (516) 620-3602
To contribute online, go to: give2wbai.org
And the best premium of all is keeping WBAI alive–and along with the Joy of Resistance! Thank you so much!
FRAN
Fran Luck,
Executive Producer,
Joy of Resistance: Multicultural Feminist Radio @ WBAI,
99.5 FM, NYC, 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, 9-10 pm
(broadcasting to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
& worldwide on the web)
And here are more details on the WBAI 100 SPEAKERS COLLECTION
We have assembled an incredible collection of the best speakers on Pacifica over the past 10 years – we call it The Pacifica Speaker Collection.
This is a collection of over 100 speeches, totaling over 200 hours of material – and it’s yours on one jump-drive the size of your thumb for a pledge of $180 or whatever you can afford.
The Pacifica Speaker Collection includes people like: Alice Walker, Amy Goodman, Bill McKibben, Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff, Cornell West, Eduardo Galeano, Russell Simmons. Paul Krugman, Eve Ensler, Studs Terkel. Van Jones with Angela Davis. Rachel Maddow, Robert Reich, Robert Scheer, Edward Said, and many many more.
Here’s how the jump drive works: you plug the drive into your computer, then you can move all those speeches wherever you want: put them on you phone or your iPod; listen over your computer at home or at work; feed them into your home stereo system; take them on the road; upload them into the cloud and give as a gift of course.
Normally, during fund drives, we ask you to pledge $60 per speech for a CD. Now, we’re offering you over 100 speeches. If you do the math, that’s $6,000 dollars worth of speeches. And you get them all on one compact hard drive the size of your thumb.
Joy of Resistance 