Radio Free Georgetown
Produced by Guy Raz
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Ken Sleeman (seated at the mic) manager of WGTB-FM from 1971-1975. Courtesy Ken Sleeman.

Community radio stations, many run as radical, left-wing collectives, sprouted up across the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Among the most outrageous was WGTB-FM at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

The hippies, students, and activists who ran the station took on Georgetown's Jesuit administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the power elite of Washington, DC. What started out as a low-power operation mushroomed into a station that broadcast at 6,700 watts and reached an audience of almost 100,000 people in the nation's capital.

In 1971 Georgetown tapped Ken Sleeman, a 25-year-old radio engineer, to manage the station, hoping he could eliminate the anti-war missives and left-wing rhetoric from the air. It only became worse.

Sleeman shares some moments from his time at WGTB.

To read more about the story of WGTB, click on the following link:
www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cover/1999/cover0129.html