June 9, 2020 – KVMR 89.5 FM will join over 100 other community radio stations to play Sam Cooke’s poignant “A Change Is Gonna Come” Tuesday at noon in commemoration of the life of George Floyd.
Floyd’s gruesome killing May 25 in Minneapolis has been the focus of international protests, and many communities ares struggling with the issues raised by his death, including racial injustice and police misconduct.
On Tuesday, Floyd will be laid to rest at a private ceremony in Houston, his hometown.
Cooke’s song was originally written in 1963 after he was turned away from a whites-only motel, according to National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) Program Director Ernesto Aguilar, and participating stations will broadcast Cooke’s civil rights movement classic anthem at the same time that afternoon, coast to coast.
“This will be a truly special airing of the song on stations from Maine to Hawaii and beyond,” noted KVMR’s Steve Baker. “Community radio stations will do a virtual holding of hands all across the country to symbolically show our grief but our resolve that ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.'”
The nationwide remembrance was organized by the NFCB, which held a regional conference at the Nevada City community radio station when KVMR moved to its new building five years ago.
“As our country deals with the hurt and outrage of what happened to George Floyd, these stations are in their communities, feeling this sorrow, too,” NFCB’s Aguilar said. “Stations together will play a song to speak as a unified voice for change, justice and love.”