03.28.07
Official MDR Introductory Cover Letter to Radio and Broadcast Companies
To Whom It May Concern:
We appreciate your commitment to increasing quality programming and to addressing the concerns and needs of the public you serve. We are writing to you because one or more of your listeners has expressed interest in having your station take part in Mother’s Day Radio’s Day of Rest and Uplift for May 2007.
Mother’s Day Radio (MDR) is an ever expanding coalition of individuals, youth agencies, women’s groups, schools, churches, community organizations, and businesses who share the vision of elevating the images of women in music.
We are focused on the need to create a space on the public airwaves that acknowledges the beauty, strength, character, vision, leadership and love of the women of the world. Our goal is to organize and implement successfully a call to action that results in a day of rest from music with misogynistic lyrical content and a day of uplifting music on the radio for women. This Day of Rest and Uplift is known as Mother’s Day Radio and will kick off on Saturday, May 12, 2007 of Mother’s Day weekend.
While MDR is addressing the degrading and sexually objectifying lyrics found in much of today’s Hip-Hop and Rhythm and Blues music, our emphasis is on supporting music with lyrical content that respectfully represents the true value and worth of mothers, daughters, sisters, and women globally.
We do not wish to censor radio or musicians. On the contrary, we believe that a plethora of rap and R&B songs with positive and uplifting lyrical content are currently being censored because they do not fit the raw sex and gangsta model that is continuously being recycled on today’s airwaves. Through our efforts, we would like to provide an open doorway for women to be more accurately and honorably represented through the musical art forms that they support.
Hip-Hop Celebrity DJ Beverly Bond has joined our teen coalition groups and our alliance partner, Soul Genesis, in creating a playlist for our beautiful day of honoring women. The music will be mostly current, with the beats we love, and will be respectful to the women of our communities. Those radio stations that pledge to the Day of Rest and Uplift will get a copy of our suggested playlist to use on Saturday, May 12, 2007 of Mother’s Day weekend.
We encourage you to support your listeners and concerned community members by implementing an MDR Day of Rest and Uplift on your airwaves on Saturday, May 12, 2007.
To pledge to this day, email us at RestandUPlift@mothersdayradio.com and we will send you a radio pledge sheet to be filled out and returned to our office. Once this process is complete, you will be included in our outreach material as one of our supporting radio stations, and you will receive the full suggested playlist for the May launch. We appreciate your active commitment to media reform and to honoring the Voice of the communities you serve.
~Team MDR
