To the DFW Community,
Noah…Negroes!
KKDA 730 played a lot of music over a 42 year span. The disc jockeys spun plenty of R&B, Blues, Pop and Jazz. Way back in the day they also played some Gospel. In the midst of all the comments and complaints that have flooded my office, one of those Gospel songs came to mind. Think back and remember the sounds and lyrics of the Sensational Nightingales, “It’s gonna rain, It’s gonna rain. You better get ready and you better get right. God showed Noah, the rainbow sign. He said no more water but fire next time!
Hyman Childs is a well-respected business owner, a pioneer of sorts and someone I call friend. For 42 years, this man who doesn’t look like a brother has proven a special appreciation for brothers and sisters in this community. Childs has built one of the few remaining non-corporate and local radio businesses left in this nation, and he has allowed this community to vent, coalesce and grow together.
However, when Soul 73 gave way to Seoul 73 on January 1st, the same fans and fair weather friends that had been advocates for Childs and the station, turned on him. Admittedly, the news was a shock to the listening audience; but it shouldn’t have. If you know me, you know that I have played the part of Noah as it pertains to the need for Kujichagulia or for self-determination if you missed Kwanzaa.
For the past 30 years, I have been a voice in the wilderness, lamenting our inability or unwillingness to build our own and have our own. Anyone who understands business, could not in good conscience complain about anyone who made an honest investment, kept it for more than four decades and then decided to sell it. That practice is legal, it’s logical and it’s long-lived.
The problem with our community is that we continue to want to reap crops from fields that we did not harvest. We want the milk, but won’t buy the cow. Just as in the day of Noah, that great day of reckoning has come.
It’s not just KKDA, there are a multitude of changes coming in our direction and have been for some time. There is no guarantee that your landlord will not demand that you vacate the apartment, condominium or home that you rent today.
On a personal note, I came home recently to find that my mortgage had been sold to another company without my consent. I pay on time all the time. I keep my yard in excellent condition, and I pay my taxes. However, someone somewhere who was vested with all of the rights of OWNERSHIP, made a decision that I have no control over.
This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington. But somehow, we have still not come into the liberty and freedom that we can claim as bona fide, tried, tested and true American citizens. While I will be the first to fight racism and inequality in its sundry facets, the legal sale of KKDA by its owner is not a fight that I would be willing to raise. (Now if you want to figure out how we can buy and have our own, call me.)
Let me end the way the Sensational Nightingales ended their song. “Way back in the bible days, Noah told the people it’s gonna rain. But when he told them they paid him no mind and when it happened they were left behind.”
You may believe Noah to be crazy, drunk or both. But Noah predicted this rain would come, and if we as a people don’t begin to think and act on our own behalf a greater flood is en route. In other words my constituents and my friends; It’s time to build our own Ark!
John Wiley Price
Dallas County Commissioner
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