WRFG Community Update
A behind-the-scenes look at WRFG Radio 89.3 FM
"Your Station for Progressive Information"


One of WRFG’s most important contributions is to enlighten its listeners on what's happening in the grassroots arena. True to this mission, WRFG reporters recently covered a landmark event that occurred here in Atlanta. Gloria Slaughter, Secretary of WRFG’s Board of Directors, explains:

Over the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, the Southeast Regional Organizing Committee met to discuss the United States Social Forum. The USSF is an outgrowth of the World Social Forum and is designed to foster the development of a broad national movement for social justice around the world. The United States Social Forum will be held in Atlanta during the summer of 2007.

The meeting was attended by more than 100 people representing 60 organizations. Project South is a lead organization in planning for the USSF. It coordinated the local host committee for the recent meeting and facilitated the workshops. Many of the participating groups – like The Ordinary Peoples Society (TOPS), Mississippi Workers Center, Miami Workers Center, Nashville Homeless, and People's Hurricane Relief Fund – represented the poor.

Hurricane Katrina was a focus of the meeting. We discussed the fact that the Katrina disaster brought to light the conditions of poverty that prevail across the South. The USSF offers the prospect of building a movement that would unite the struggles that various groups are already pursuing. In fact, Katrina-related groups like the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund expressed a strong desire to coalesce their diverse struggles and build a united movement.

There will be a Southeast Regional planning meeting in June. The Organizing Committee enthusiastically adopted "Another South is Possible: A Political Revival" as the theme for the June meeting.

WRFG’s roving reporters were in full force at the organizing meeting, holding many interviews that will be aired on WRFG in the coming months. The reporters included Algernon Blue, Kerwin Bown, WRFG’s Broadcast Director Ebon Dooley, Craig Gatling, Akilah Light, Millicent St.Claire, and WRFG Board Member Sobukwe Shukura.

The World Social Forum is an annual meeting held by members of the alternative globalization and anti-imperialist movements to coordinate world campaigns and share issues. This January, forums are being hosted by three cities – Bamako (Mali-Africa), Caracas (Venezuela-Americas) and Karachi (Pakistan-Asia). To find out more about the United States Social Forum, see www.ussocialforum.org.

For more information about WRFG, visit our web site at www.wrfg.org. And don’t forget to support our Tower of Power campaign. See you next week!