Category: Special Broadcasts

Martin Luther King Jr. 1961 Speech

1/18/2021

A speech that Dr. King gave in 1961 at the Temple Emanuel synagogue in Worcester, Mass. was preserved in a cassette recording that was forgotten for many years and was rediscovered in Las Cruces, remastered in 2017 and made available to KTAL for broadcast. Presented early in 1961, the speech was given as the civil rights movement was picking up steam following the successes of the Montgomery bus boycott, the lunch counter sit-ins, Brown v. Board of Education, and shortly after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. The challenge of racial injustice is still with us, and Dr. King’s words still ring true today.

KTAL is proud to offer this important speech to our listeners.

NO MÁS - An original radio play by Meagan O'Toole-Pitts & Lustre Theatre

9/19/2020

NO MÁS, is an original radio play that tells the story of Carmelita Torres and the almost forgotten bath riots of El Paso 100 years ago. NO MÁS is a dramatic story of resistance, activism, and sisterhood. Acted by members of the Lustre Theater, the play is introduced by playwright Meagan O'Toole-Pitts.

In 1917, the mayor of El Paso and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service set up what they called The El Paso Disinfection Plant at the Santa Fe Bridge, allegedly to combat the disease typhus. It required all immigrants coming from Juarez to file through the facility and strip naked, where they were doused with kerosene, gasoline, sulfuric acid, and the notorious chemical Zyklon B, the toxic gas later used in the Nazi death camps. The workers, both men and women, were subjected to this treatment every day before they could enter El Paso for their daily jobs.

Carmelita Torres, a young housekeeper, refused to submit to this humiliating procedure, and led more than 200 women in a sit down action in front of the city's trolleys, which shut down the city for 3 days.

Originally broadcast on KTAL-LP on September 19, 2020.

Martin Luther King Jr. 1961 Speech

NO MÁS - An original radio play by Meagan O'Toole-Pitts & Lustre Theatre

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