This in via e-mail:
Riddle: If a black cat has 9 lives, how many lives does a Black Panther have? Answer: We don't know, but human rights activist Mbanna Kantako is determined to find out.
Kantako, frequently referred to as the Father of the Micro-Radio Movement, returned his micro station, Human Rights Radio (106.5 FM) to the air on Tuesday, March 20. Those of you who have followed the Kantako chronicles, for the past 13 1/2 years, know that he has been raided and ripped off-the-air by the FCC Thought Police, and their local armed forces (called Multi-Jurisdictional SWAT Teams), two times in the last six months. Well, "He's Baaaack!" and once again in violation of a federal court order not to broadcast.
Kantako has steadfastly declared that the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights guarantees ordinary citizens the right to communicate with their fellow citizens and that giant media corporations, with the support of their bought and sold politicians, have usurped that right from the people. Defending himself at the last hearing in federal court, he demanded that Human Rights Monitors from the International Community be invited by the court as observers at his hearings. The court, predictably, denied his demand. Kantako, by returning to-the-air for a third time, has put the ball back in the FCC's court. General Colin Powell's son, Michael, plucked (with Daddy's help) the political plum of a job as new head of the FCC in the illegitimately elected Bush Administration. The volley is now his. Let's see how he plays the blind Black Panther.
What did Kantako do during the few months he was off-the-air, you ask. Well he certainly didn't sulk around feeling depressed and sorry for himself. Quite the contrary. What he did was put together a weekly half-hour cable access TV program entitled Raw African Power (R.A.P.) which began it's run on local Channel 4 a few weeks ago.
Most people don't know that Kantako has run a summer school for low-income youth for the past 15 years, known as the Marcus Garvey School of Human Rights; it's run by neighborhood volunteers and university students working together. Seven years ago he started the Senseia Kankaji Human Rights Club, an after-school mentoring program for students who attend the summer school.
Inspired by the oral history method of teaching utilized by "Griots" in African societies, Kantako has written over 200 rap songs in the past two years, dealing with human rights, social injustice, black history, etc. He teaches these songs to the children in the summer school and mentoring program. They, in turn, perform the songs on the cable access TV program and the audience learns the lessons through them. Over the years, Kantako has established contacts around the country and now some of these people are taking copies of Kantako's shows to their own cable access channels for showing. Kantako has enough songs in hand to do 50 more TV programs.
Well, that's one thing he did. Another was to transfer more than 1000 of his old micro-radio programs from cassette tape to CD's, which will make his 24/7 broadcast life a little easier now that he is back on-the-air.
So, there's your update. You can reach Kantako at 113 N. 5th St., Springfield, IL. 62702. Phone # is: 217-789-0038. E-mail is: Kantako@warpnet.net
Mike Townsend
Mtown1@uis.edu
217-206-7574