Proud To Be Pride & Black & Immigrant

At a time when major media companies are folding to the pressure and not supporting heritage months, public radio music stations continue to showtheir true colors. During June’s Black Music Month/Juneteenth, Pride Heritage Month and Immigrant Heritage Month, many Paragon clients and VuHaus Group stations held creative activations to publicly celebrate three of America’s largest diverse communities.

Here are just a few stations that should be celebrated for their continued support to diversity and inclusion—

WFUV New York (Triple A): In addition to Pride themed playlists on two specialty shows – The Whole Wide World and UKNY – WFUV produced an hour-long original program, “Come Together: Queer Songwriters on Identity.” FUV gathered interviews with artists identifying as LGBTQ+ speaking about what it has meant to be out, proud, and inspired as a songwriter. Those journeys readily define love as part of that ultimate destination, with artistic acceptance, fulfillment and freedom.

KALW San Francisco (Community): The “Song Exploder Remix” stitched together episodes of Song Exploder around a common theme of queer songwriters. Composer Juan Sebastián Cardona Ospina visited the KALW studios for a special Pride Week celebration, joining “Revolutions Per Minute” to play two hours of music by LGBTQ composers, including some of his own music.

Novaphonic Dayton (Triple A): Novaphonic’s busy heritage month began onsite for Pride on Fifth, a neighborhood celebration that’s part of Dayton’s larger Pride celebration, where a mini-recording booth allowed community members to share their Pride wishes for the community. For Black Music Month, they partnered with For Dayton By Dayton, a local hip hop music festival. For Black Music Month and Juneteenth, Novaphonic DJ Ladi Bounce and her spouse MC Pickett Fence were live on the air with Evan Miller for Midday Music co-curating a mix for the day’s celebrations and highlighting community events. They finished celebrations by marching in a fun, funky local Pride parade in their hometown of Yellow Springs.

KUTX Austin (Triple A): Weekly focuses included “Austin Pride” highlighting Austin musicians, music industry, and/or venues that have or currently shape the queer Austin music scene, a Next of Kin live performance in Studio 1A, and another Studio 1A live performance with INVOKE string ensemble featuring new Voxtrot and Ramesh Srivastava songs.

K. Carter performs at For Dayton By Dayton on Saturday, June 14, 2025.
Photo credit: Ruthie Herman

WRTI Philadelphia (Jazz/Classical): Multiple audio and video content activations from WRTI included: “Evening Jazz” featured a variety of music that celebrates Freedom Day and the Black American experience; “Late Evening Jazz” played all Black artists performing Civil Rights anthems, songs of hope and songs for Freedom, and; Anthony Tidd & Sittin’ In All Stars w/ Ursula Rucker “L.O.V.E.” performed at WRTI for NPR Live Sessions. Song selections included the new version of “We Insist!” by Terri Lyne Carrington with Christie Dashiell and the original “We Insist!” by Max Roach with Abbey Lincoln from 1960; Katalyst “Juneteenth,” Blue Note All Stars “Freedom Dance” and Christian McBride “The Movement Revisited.” On Instagram they posted a clip of poet Ruth Naomi Floyd performing a clip from WRTI’s film shoot of “A Love Supreme” filmed at Mother Bethel AME.

The Bridge Kansas City (Triple A): Street teams and air staff held activations at the KC Pride event throughout the weekend. On the air, The Bridge celebrated multiple June heritage months with weeklong Artist of the Week / Artist of the Day features for Pride, Black Music Month/Juneteenth, Immigrant Heritage Month.

WNRN Richmond (Triple A): Through WNRN’s “Hear Together” feature, they aired 90-second messages spotlighting nonprofits in our listening area that serve the LGBTQIA+ community.

KING Seattle (Classical): “Unmute the Voices” produced videos for their Instagram and Youtube. June 19 featured a Juneteenth playlist and the week of June 23 KING aired on-air collaborations with the Seattle Opera, Seattle Pride, and Seattle Center.

KXT Dallas (Triple A): Each KXT host – Benji McPhail in mornings, La Bell in middays, Lesley James in afternoons, and Jackson Wisdorf in evenings – aired a full daypart music feature in June with a PRIDE or Juneteenth playlist that was featured on their website and social pages with a link to their Spotify playlists.

WXPN Philadelphia (Triple A): The entire day of Juneteenth WXPN aired Black music featuring iconic soul, funk, hip hop, jazz and blues.

All of Team Paragon are honored to work with individuals and stations that exhibit unyielding commitments to doing the right things as they face challenges to their existence. If you’re looking for courage in radio, you can find it on the left end of the dial where the entire public matters to public radio.