The Citizen Recommends: WURD Founder’s Day
The Citizen Recommends: WURD Founder'southward Day
This Friday, Pennsylvania's only black-owned talk radio station will host a free, day-long celebration to honour the mission of its founder, Walter P. Lomax Jr.: to uplift Philly
Aug. 20, 2019
Dr. Walter P. Lomax Jr. was many things.
A physician who provided intendance for underserved communities for more than than three decades. A savvy real estate entrepreneur. A generous philanthropist. A loving husband and male parent of six, and a pillar of the many Philly communities in which he lived and worked. Both formally, through The Lomax Family Foundation, and informally, he supported neighbors in-demand and organizations he believed in—from PhilaDanco and Art Sanctuary to The African American Museum in Philadelphia and New Freedom Theatre .
And as the owner of WURD , Pennsylvania's only talk radio station owned by and targeting African Americans, Lomax was committed to amplifying his ability to uplift and empower others.
"My dad wasn't a media person—he was a md who was [as well] very keenly enlightened of real manor. Simply he actually understood the power of media, and recognized that through this media belongings, he would be able to empower many more people than he could empower on a one-on-ane ground," explains Sara Lomax-Reese, one of Lomax's 6 grown children and the President and CEO of WURD. Her family unit's conclusion to buy WURD in 2003, she says, was actually about creating an independently endemic and operated media arrangement that could serve the customs. "It was almost community empowerment, and Founder'due south Solar day is simply an extension of that."
"In that location are incredible disparities that get back generations, that are structural and deeply embedded into the culture of this country,"
The seventh annual upshot, which volition exist held this Fri, August 23rd, and be broadcast live all day on WURD, will feature free programming centered around the values Lomax, who died at historic period 81 in 2013, held dearest: job creation, wealth redistribution, health and wellness—and joy.
The outcome will take identify at the Free Library of Philadelphia . From nine am-v pm, in that location will exist a job off-white, career-readiness workshops, wellness screenings, expungement resource, mindful movement, and panels on topics like gentrification, pipeline issues in Stalk, and environmental justice; from 5 pm-7 pm, there will be a rooftop lounge for millennials who want to mix and mingle while the station broadcasts its regular millennial-focused show, The Lounge.
Given our city'south dire racial disparities—and that the unemployment rate among African American adults in Philly and the state, at 17.7 percent and 15.4 per centum, respectively, is higher than that of any other group—the job-focused programming, presented as part of a new initiative WURD is calling LivelyHOOD, is peculiarly crucial. "At that place are incredible disparities that go back generations, that are structural and deeply embedded into the culture of this country," Lomax-Reese says. Founder'southward Day intends to offer information and opportunities to those who for too long have gone without both.
It volition be a mean solar day of celebration, of compassion, and of change—all hallmarks of the life Lomax led, and the legacy he left behind.
"You have these markers of how many people listen to your radio station or how many Facebook likes y'all go, but at the finish of the day, all that really matters is whether you're making a departure in the lives of people who demand it the most," says Lomax-Reese. "To me, that's what WURD is about, that's what Founder'due south Day is about, that'due south what my mom and dad were nigh, that's what I'm most."
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-citizen-recommends-wurd-founders-day/
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