KUCB-FM (Iowa)

In 1976, a Human Rights Commission task force determined that Des Moines media was not adequately meeting the needs of the city's minority residents;[5] according to one study, its existing radio stations presented fewer than 10 hours a week of minority-oriented programming.

[6] The effort to build a minority radio station was spearheaded by Charles Knox, a former head of the local Black Panther Party, and Joeanna Cheatom, who would be described as the founder of KUCB.

[5] Also involved in founding the station was Edna Griffin, who in 1948 had protested the refusal of the Katz Drug Store lunch counter downtown to serve Black customers.

The station broadcast 20 hours a day on weekdays (21 on weekends); its output included gospel, jazz and reggae music, church services and talk shows.

[5] KUCB quickly became a pillar of the local community; its job ads helped the city implement its affirmative action program, while the station worked to defuse racial tension stemming from a series of police incidents in 1982.

[14] The station received a $20,000 grant from the Des Moines city council in January 1984 over the objections of an atheist activist who opposed the subsidy of a gospel music outlet.

[17] A 1984 Iowa Public Television documentary, Black Frequencies, profiled the state's three African American radio stations: KUCB-FM, KOJC in Cedar Rapids, and KBBG in Waterloo.

First vice president Iris "Sissy" Ward, Cheatom's daughter,[21] said of Saladin, "He was supposed to be writing grant proposals, but he didn't want to take money from white folks.

[21] Behind the new course of action for the station was Charles Knox, whose legal problems were becoming relevant to KUCB-FM's future; by January 1987, he was awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court on charges of selling arms to Libya.

[21] Two months later, he was convicted as posing as one of his co-defendant's attorneys to visit him in prison, while testimony in the arms case revealed that Knox and two other conspirators associated with the El Rukn street gang traveled to Libya and made an offer to Muammar Gaddafi to commit terrorist acts in the United States in exchange for $2 million.

[27] In April, new general manager Ako Abdul-Samad said that despite being the chairman of the board of directors of Urban Community Broadcasting, the Knox conviction would not impact KUCB, as he had no hand in the day-to-day decision making at the station.

[28] The station also sought money to pay operational expenses and had repaired remote control and Emergency Broadcast System equipment (which it had at one point lacked)[29] to help keep it within FCC regulations; it also added a talk show for Hispanics and a legal advice program.

[34] By this time, KUCB-FM had settled in at the offices of nonprofit organization Urban Dreams; its executive director, future Iowa state representative Wayne Ford, also was the radio station's president.

[34] In 1991, the KUCB-FM revocation proceeding was converted into a serious renewal battle when the FCC designated the license for hearing opposite rival bids—one led by ACORN and another headed by KDMI radio personality Larry Nevilles—both promising minority-oriented programming.

[36][35] That record, in addition to the Libya case, also included facts directly related to KUCB: Knox had embezzled $31,000 of the $72,000 Department of Commerce grant issued in 1984, diverting it in 1985 and 1986 to an automotive company in Chicago.

[38] They also said that the real reason for the competing challenges was the Muslim influence at KUCB-FM; the station had returned to broadcasting Louis Farrakhan's speeches, something that ACORN president Pauline Green wanted to bring to an end.

[39] KUCB-FM's license defense got off to an inauspicious start in early 1992 when it missed a hearing and its lawyer, Alfredo Parrish, called the FCC meeting a "waste of time"; the station said it was not aware he needed to appear in person in Washington instead of telephonically.

[40] In testimony that August, Abdul-Samad and Long claimed that KUCB-FM had been sabotaged throughout its time off air and after a falling out with Nevilles, who criticized the station within the Des Moines Black community.

[42] He found that the Center for the Study and Application of Black Economic Development should be disqualified for willfully intending to deceive the FCC about its knowledge of Knox's felony and for the unapproved silence of KUCB-FM,[42] and that ACORN was financially unqualified to be the licensee.