Article Title:
Black-led media are seeing a resurgence in Seattle but ‘we’re so much further back than we used to be’
As a small crowd filters into the Columbia City Theater on a gray May Tuesday, Tony Benton stands on the stage with a mic in one hand and a smoothie in the other, saying “one-two-one-two-one-two.”
Volunteers and assistants yell back and forth as the moment they go live ticks closer — “One minute!” “Guys, we only have one camera going!” — but Benton exudes Zen.
In a cramped little studio in the next room, a community talk show is ending. An ad comes on for a Wednesday “dance-based walking program” for older adults or people with disabilities.
A volunteer counts down to one.
“Welcome to Rainier Avenue Radio,” Benton says. “This is a town hall meeting. First of all, my name is Tony B.”
Rainier Avenue Radio has existed since 2017 as an online community radio station, with Benton as its founder and station manager, but it was late last year that the station moved into the Columbia City Theater. The theater was purchased last year in a partnership between Benton and a public development authority called the Cultural Space Agency, with a grant from the city of Seattle paying for the upfront costs and some upcoming renovations, Benton says.
It’s a flourishing moment for the little radio station, which Benton started broadcasting from a reading room of the Columbia City library branch a block away. Before 2020, the station had about 10,000 monthly listeners on its website, rainieravenueradio.world; COVID-19 and the programming Benton created to spread information about COVID bumped that toward 50,000.
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