Kojo Nnamdi at the St. Mary’s College Carter G. Woodson Lecture

St. Mary’s City, MD — His broadcasting career in Washington, DC has spanned five decades. To a packed house Thursday at St. Mary’s College’s Auerbach Auditorium, Kojo Nnamdi quipped that it has taken him that long to get invited to speak at the college. Nnamdi was the 23rd lecturer in a series named after Carter Woodson, a role model for Nnamdi. Woodson is considered the father of Black History.

The WAMU talk show host was warmly introduced by recently inaugurated St. Mary’s College President Tuajuanda Jordan, who said she grew up listening to Nnamdi on WHUR. Mesmerized by his smooth voice, she said she told herself, “I am going to be just like him.”

Nnamdi is host of the “Kojo Nnamdi Show” and “The Politics Hour” on WAMU, where he has been since 1998. He started at WOL in 1970 and moved to be news editor at WHUR, with its groundbreaking “Daily Drum” show which covered DC politics, Capitol Hill, labor relations and African news.

From radio Nnamdi switched to TV at WHUR but came to realize that on TV people paid attention to what you wore while on radio they paid attention to what you said. He remains an unabashed fan of radio to this day. “Radio has a conversation that continues to survive and be active.”

Nnamdi noted the passing of part-time St. Mary’s County resident Ben Bradlee, long-time Washington Post editor, “at a time we are witnessing the demise of the newspaper industry in general and the Washington Post in particular.”  Radio, he said, will continue to have a future in that environment and continue to thrive.

Although the general public was invited, the crowd that packed the auditorium in St. Mary’s Hall was largely a college crowd. Nnamdi challenged them. He said each generation has a mission. The challenge to them:”Fulfill it or betray it.” He observed, “The reason we are here today is not because generations before you betrayed their mission but fulfilled their mission.”

Among the missions to fulfill is to deal “with the racial division of ongoing inequities around the world.” Nnamdi noted that the gentrification of many Washington, DC neighborhoods and in other places is acting to exacerbate the racial divide.
Nnamdi said that policy makers need to confront the existence of the racial divide.

“They can’t pretend the divide doesn’t exist. We are good at denial.” He used as an example the housing discrimination that is part of gentrification. He said laws exist to prevent it; they just aren’t enforced.

Nnamdi started at Howard in a poorer section of town and now works at American in one of the richest neighborhoods. He takes his show out into diverse neighborhoods of the city and has found there is very little difference in issues concerning neighborhoods, be they poor or rich. The issues are the same, such as police protection and trash collection. “They have so much in common,” he observed.

Nnamdi also challenged the students to embrace as their mission the feeding of the world’s population. “Millions are going hungry in the midst of plenty,” he said.

The lecture was sponsored by the St. Mary’s College Lecture and Fine Arts Committee, the Center for the Study of Democracy, African and Diaspora Studies and the Political Science Department