Radio CPR, 97.5 FM: Our mission and history
Radio CPR was founded by a group of residents of Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights to provide an outlet for the voices, stories, music and opinions that so often get excluded from mainstream forums of communication. CPR opens a space that resists corporate control of the airwaves. We also provide the opportunity for more residents to participate in discussions about the issues that impact their city and their neighborhoods. Radio CPR began as a project of Stand for Our Neighbors, a group of residents committed to standing up for the rights of DC residents affected by unjust immigration and welfare reform legislation. Stand for Our Neighbors began by organizing to give a forum to those many residents excluded from decision making and problem solving around issues that impact them. We created forums for people to learn about the root causes of the many problems impacting our communities, from violence to crime to homelessness to substance abuse. We hosted cultural events to connect with one another in our neighborhoods across the many of the borders that separate us. After years of organizing community-based events featuring films, speakers, musicians and artists to build community and raise awareness about the issues we cared about, starting a neighborhood radio station seemed like the next logical step. Radio CPR was born out of the need to create an alternative context for receiving ideas and culture in rapidly changing DC communities. It’s a place for people who might not otherwise ordinarily interact to work together on a common project, to build relationships and understanding and to have a voice.
We strive to involve a broad cross-section of the community that falls into our listening range in creating programming and airing voices. Radio CPR gives priority to those who most lack access to the means of media production and who are most underserved and underrepresented by mainstream forms of communication. Radio CPR is not only a place to hear and to express views not heard anywhere else: it is a tool we can use to challenge oppression from the scale of the neighborhood to the globe.
Radio
CPR Today
After some initial starts and stops, Radio CPR has been broadcasting seven nights a week since 1999. Over forty volunteers a week give their time to the station, most of whom have been working with us for years. Our collective involves people representing a broad cross section of the neighborhoods we serve. Our volunteers, show hosts and deejays are young, old, Black, White, Latino, African, Asian, renters and homeowners. We include social workers, bar tenders, carpenters, the unemployed, artists, waitresses, teachers, students, lawyers and more. Our budget is only around $1000 a year. We raise funds by organizing film nights and concerts at a local church space.
We took over this tiny piece of the airwaves because we believe our communities need more outlets to voice and to listen to perspectives that don’t get enough air time. We wanted to create a way to engage in the civic life of our neighborhoods through building community, working on common projects, listening to opinions other than one’s own, and understanding root causes of problems before latching onto “solutions” that may do unjust harm to our neighbors. Our station is about being involved in community in ways that enable people to experiment, to build skills, to share experiences, to push past our biases and to cross some borders – within our neighborhoods but also within our own hearts.
These values have driven Radio CPR from the beginning. We chose not to allow big corporations to deprive our communities of the opportunities a microbroadcast station opened up, and we took the risk of going on the air without a license. We did this not only because we believe many independent voices are being squeezed out from above – through corporate media concentration – but because a great many voices are being squeezed out from below through an urban development process that excludes, marginalizes and sometimes even demonizes many of our neighbors – particularly youth, immigrants, people of color, renters and those who earn under $30,000 a year. Radio CPR strives to better serve our community. To open up even more to more voices and to more people. To let even more people know that we exist. However, the more we grow and reach out, the bigger the risk of getting shut down by the FCC. As our name states, we are and always have been community powered. We want to be on the radar of many but slip under that of some. This has at times created an uneasy balance between exposure and secrecy. Despite these barriers, we have garnered much community support over the years as evidenced by the hundreds of residents, organizers, community workers, teachers, youth, musicians and others who have either hosted or been guests on our show. We need your support and we also need to know how we can better support you.
In other parts of the country, communities have fought back to protect stations similar to ours from being shut down. For instance in Brattleborro, Vermont, an unlicensed radio station recently went back on the air with tremendous community support after being shut down by the FCC. In San Francisco, the City Council passed a resolution this summer supporting an unlicensed station there.
We are trying to build a groundswell of support for our community radio station here in our Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan communities, and we need your help. Come Join Us!
1. Ask questions! If you want to learn more about the station
and its legal or ethical ramifications please don’t
hesitate to ask. We welcome your inquiries.
2. Host or be a guest on one of our shows.
3. Write a letter of support.
4. Agree to be on Radio CPR’s community support committee.
Get in touch with us at
radiocpr at riseup dot net!
Check out a sample of our programming.
And read our Statement of Civil Disobedience.
