insert_link Featured Michael Days, editor and advocate for diversity in journalism, dies at 72 By Ovetta Wiggins | URL Media * Photo Courtesy of YouTubeMichael Days, a pioneering editor and tireless advocate for diversity in America’s newsrooms who shepherded the Philadelphia Daily News to a 2010 Pulitzer Prize win for investigative journalism, died Saturday after suffering a heart attack in Trenton, New Jersey. He was 72.As executive editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, known as the “People’s Paper,” and a lifelong member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Days challenged the industry’s white-male-dominated newsrooms […] todayOctober 21, 2025
insert_link Featured This week on WURD: Remembering the Million Man March, legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, Columbus Day vs. Indigenous Peoples’ Day Della Clark is the president of the Enterprise Center in Philadelphia. Clark joined Wake Up With WURD with Solomon Jones to talk about "Ready Set Grow," WURD's initiative to help local businesses prepare for the influx of business during the country's semiquincentennial year. Clark also discussed the importance of strategic planning and execution and stressed that financial readiness is key.Carvin Haggins is a Grammy-winning producer and multi-platinum songwriter known for shaping the sound of contemporary R&B and soul. Haggins joined Tiffany Bacon […] todayOctober 17, 2025
insert_link Featured The Assata Alignment By Dr. James Peterson | WURD RadioTraditionally, when Black legends transcend—artists, educators, entertainers, and especially revolutionaries—we say, Rest in Power. With the transcendence of Assata Shakur, this phrase becomes not only a farewell but a charge. It is a discursive summoning of spirit, a reminder of the weight carried by those who dared to love Black people enough to resist.Assata’s story is singular in the history of Black resistance in the United States. Her life defies the limits of fiction—it is too complex, […] todayOctober 14, 2025
insert_link 1 Featured This week on WURD: National Guard in Chicago, exhausted while Black, the resilience of Black women Cleopatra Draper is the midday host for WURD's sister station, WVON in Chicago. Draper joined Wake Up With WURD with Solomon Jones to discuss the public response to the deployment of the National Guard and ICE to Chicago. She also weighed in on the current mood in the city and how these actions are impacting the Black community.Dr. McKinley Melton, an associate professor and chair of Africana Studies at Rhodes College, appeared on Evening WURDs with Dr. James Peterson and spoke about his […] todayOctober 10, 2025 1
insert_link 4 Featured WURD Radio Honors Founder and Community Leaders at 2025 Gala WURD Radio marked its annual Founder's Day Gala on Friday, Oct. 3, gathering supporters at the Fairmount Park Horticulture Center to celebrate the station's legacy, honor its founder, and recognize community impact across Philadelphia. The evening served as a tribute to the life and vision of WURD founder Walter P. Lomax Jr., M.D., whose dedication established the state's only Black-owned talk radio station.The event spotlighted the contributions of the 2025 Community Impact Award recipients. This year's honorees were: Loree D. […] todayOctober 8, 2025 4
insert_link 3 Featured This week on WURD: Remembering Assata Shakur, Ali Velshi on shutdown and democracy, gridlock in Harrisburg Ali Velshi, award-winning MSNBC journalist and host of Velshi, joined Wake Up With WURD with Solomon Jones to discuss the looming government shutdown, Donald Trump’s alarming comments about using the military in U.S. cities, and the broader threat of rewriting American history. Velshi also previewed MSNBC’s Live 25 event in New York City. Pam Africa, MOVE member and longtime activist, joined Wake Up With WURD to reflect on the life and legacy of Assata Shakur — from meeting her in […] todayOctober 2, 2025 3
insert_link Featured The Defenders: Why Black Americans Are the Backbone of American Democracy By Dr. James Peterson | WURD RadioFrom the brutal bondage of slavery to the barricades of the Civil Rights Movement, from the ballot boxes of Reconstruction to the protest power of Black Lives Matter, Black Americans have cultivated the critical infrastructure of American democracy. Time and again, we have rescued it, resurrected it, and relentlessly defended it.Through centuries of exclusion, terror, and systemic oppression, Black communities have forced this nation to reckon with its own promises. In every era when democracy has faltered—when […] todayOctober 1, 2025
insert_link Featured This week on WURD: NJ city’s slavery reenactment request, activism through politics, the spiritual successor to “Love Jones” Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Melanie Burney and Salem County NAACP president Nelson Carney joined Wake Up With WURD with Solomon Jones to discuss a controversy in Salem, N.J., where Black students were asked to participate in a slave reenactment for the city’s 350th anniversary celebration. The request, made by Betsy McBride on behalf of the nonprofit Stand Up for Salem, sparked outrage and led to her termination. Independent filmmaker Nicholas 'Sixx' King joined The Midday Break Room with Tiffany Bacon to […] todaySeptember 26, 2025
insert_link Posts A pivotal moment for free and independent journalism in PA By Christopher Baxter | Spotlight PA Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters. There are more forces at work than ever to silence free and fearless reporting, and there are fewer resources than ever to undertake the independent, unbiased investigative journalism that keeps our government honest and ensures it ultimately answers to “We the People...”. That work is […] todaySeptember 23, 2025
