WPFW's 50th Anniversary Gala — Save the Date, May 2, 2027

WPFW's 50th anniversary

Fifty years. One night.

Sunday, May 2, 2027 · Martin's Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD · Tickets in November

An evening honoring five decades of community-powered radio. Music, guest speakers, special tributes, and the people who kept 89.3 on the air without selling a second of it.

Save the date Sponsor the night

50 WPFW 89.3 · 1977–2027

Date

Sunday, May 2, 2027

Where

Martin's Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD

Tickets

On sale in November

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What the night is

Fifty years. Everybody who built it.

Sunday, May 2, 2027 · Martin's Crosswinds · Greenbelt, MD · Tickets on sale in November

Some of the people in that room signed the station on in 1977. Some found 89.3 last week on a car radio.

An evening of music, guest speakers and special tributes, and the first real chance in a long time to get listeners, volunteers, programmers and staff under one roof.

Mark your calendar for a milestone that reflects our past, amplifies our present, and helps sustain the independent voice of WPFW for the next fifty years.

Nobody buys time on this station. That was true on the first night and it is true on this one, which is why a room like this is worth filling.

Years on air

1977–2027

Broadcasting

24/7

Nobody buys time on this station

Volunteer hosts

120+

Listener-supported, every year

The station itself

The soul of the sound.

It took nine years to get the license

WPFW signed on at 8 PM on February 28, 1977, after a license fight that started in 1968. Von Martin, a volunteer, was the first voice on the air, and the first record was Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train."

The whole station was one room split four ways. On-air studio, office, newsroom, and a corner where volunteers built their shows. It was the fifth Pacifica station and the only one set up from the start as a Black-staffed, Black-formatted station for a Black city.

Why it still matters

We don't chase algorithms. We chase the groove. A commercial station answers to whoever bought the break. WPFW answers to the people who called the pledge line, and that shows up in what gets played and who gets a microphone.

Go-go and salsa and roots reggae and new Black American music. Housing, statehood, civil rights. Programmers who have held the same hour for thirty years and know exactly who is listening at 6 a.m.

Fifty years of that is not a streak. It is a decision the District keeps making, one gift at a time.

Fifty years, written out

From the license fight to the fiftieth.

← Scroll the staff →

1968 Pacifica starts hunting an FM license in Washington. The fight runs nine years.

Feb 28, 1977 Sign-on at 8 PM. Von Martin, a volunteer, is the first voice. First record: "Take the 'A' Train."

1977 The whole station is one room split four ways. On-air studio, office, newsroom, and a corner for volunteers to build their shows.

1977 Georgetown pulls the community collectives off its student station. The women's co-op, the gay co-op, the labor co-op and the housing co-op have nowhere to go, and they come to 89.3.

Late 1970s Sophie's Parlor lands at WPFW and is still here. Ivy Joan Young interviews Sweet Honey in the Rock and Alice Walker for the collective in the station's first year.

Late 1970s Friends, the gay show Georgetown would not keep, gets an hour. The printed logo survives in the Rainbow History Project archive: do it with Friends, WPFW-FM 89.3.

Late 1970s Jerry Washington covers a Saturday shift on his own and never gives it back. He becomes the Bama, and The Bama Hour becomes the most popular show on the station.

Mar 27, 1979 Askia Muhammad, a volunteer since September 1977, hosts the first Yardbird Sweets, named for Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite." He is still hosting it forty years later.

1983 The FCC renews the license after a two-year delay, rejecting a challenge that tried to take WPFW off the air over its politics.

1990 Nelson Mandela walks out of prison in South Africa and WPFW carries it live.

Early 1990s Black Brown and Beige Quintet: five women, five nights a week, each one a different take on the music. Katea Stitt joins at nineteen. She runs the programming today.

1994 Jerry Washington, the Bama, becomes an ancestor at 64. Listeners still trade tapes of the show.

1995 The Million Man March fills the National Mall and goes out live on 89.3.

1996 After roughly two decades in Chinatown, the station moves to Adams Morgan.

2009 Barack Obama is sworn in a mile from the studio. WPFW broadcasts the inauguration live.

2012 The 35th anniversary party sells out in a week. Miyuki Williams, Robyn Holden and Katea Stitt pair up more than 150 volunteer DJs on air through the Buddy System.

2013 The Adams Morgan building is slated for demolition. A plan to leave the District for Silver Spring is dropped after listeners object.

2015 New studios open on K Street NW, still in the city the station was licensed to serve.

Feb 28, 2027 Fifty years to the day since sign-on.

May 2, 2027 The 50th Anniversary Gala. Martin's Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD.

Coming, and helping

Tickets drop in November.

Three ways to be part of May 2, starting today.

Free

Save the date

Sunday, May 2, 2027 at Martin's Crosswinds in Greenbelt. Put it in your calendar now and the rest takes care of itself.

Add May 2

November

Watch for tickets

Seats go on sale in November. Members hear first, and the on-sale date is announced on 89.3 FM and here.

Become a member

Any time

Give to the station

Fifty years of radio nobody paid to influence. Give monthly and the drives get shorter.

Give to WPFW

Questions

Call the station.

Studio line

Pledge line

Membership

Listen live

May 2, 2027 · Martin's Crosswinds · Greenbelt, MD

Join the ensemble.

Fifty years of radio nobody paid to influence. One night to be in the room for it.

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Community radio from the heart of Washington, DC
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