“Uprising with Sonali” has transformed into a national TV/Radio production debuting on Free Speech TV on October 27th at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Watch this 60 second promotional video about the debut, and share it on your social networks!

After many months of preparation and ground work that involved a crowd funding campaign, purchasing equipment, training staff, and doing countless test runs, we are thrilled to be broadcasting Uprising on Free Speech TV.

At Uprising we are proud to be a program created by two women of color for a broad audience. We are aware of the dearth of our demographic on both television and radio and to that end we don’t shy away from tackling issues of race, gender, and class head on, infusing it into our discussions of war, the environment, the economy, and more.

Listeners on KPFK and KPFA Pacifica Radio will continue to hear our live radio broadcast every week day, and a few hours later, viewers on Free Speech TV will get to watch that same program on your television screens.

Free Speech TV is available on DISH Network Channel 9415, DIRECTV Channel 348, and on Roku – which is a great alternative if you don’t have or don’t want cable. More at www.roku.com.

This exciting transition would not have been possible without the crucial help of the following individuals. In alphabetical order:

Jonathan Alexander, KPFK’s IT specialist, who worked many long hours including weekends, solving our technical problems, fixing equipment, trouble shooting, and creating the technical architecture we needed to pull this off. Jonathan has been one of our greatest cheerleaders.

Tony Arratia, who told Sonali years ago that she should be on television and that he would help make it happen and indeed he did. Tony moved mountains to get us what we needed and for that we are truly grateful to him and Keycode Media.

Brett Collins at BC Live Productions, who has been deeply committed to this project from the start, done more than he needed to, showed us the utmost patience and professionalism, and done so much for so little, helping set up our studios, designing our set, and much more.

Bob Conger, KPFK’s Chief Engineer, who patiently re-designed many aspects of the room we are broadcasting from, turning our studio, designed for radio, into one that can accommodate both TV and radio – which is no easy feat.

Zuberi Fields, KPFK’s Interim General Manager, who started his staunch support for this project while he was Operations Manager and continued to provide all the support we needed even as he juggled multiple priorities, from overseeing contracts to purchasing equipment.

Alan Minsky, KPFK interim program director, who supported us every step of the way and championed this transition with such optimism even when we were worried we couldn’t pull it off, and found creative ways to help us fundraise and promote the show.

Jessie Wood, KPFK volunteer and outreach coordinator who worked hard to make the Uprising TV launch party a success.

We also want to thank the incredible folks at Free Speech TV including Jason McKain, Benjamin Gass, Than Reeder, Antoinette June, Ron Williams, Alexander Maness, Heather Schreck, and all the good folks at FSTV with whom we hope to have a long and fruitful collaboration.

We also want to thank those people outside KPFK who volunteered their time and energy to this project:

Ayappa Biddanda and members of the incredible band Ozomatli, who helped us in our fundraising efforts and have offered recordings of their live performance on Uprising in April for our music breaks.

Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges, who went out of their way to record fund pitches for our campaign and lend their names to this project.

Chris Manley who, along with TK Shom, shot much of the original footage that went into our title sequence. Chris also provided many hours of lighting consultation.

Tagori Mazzoni, a loyal listener of Uprising, who spent many hours volunteering his time to help put together Uprising’s television title sequence, patiently working to incorporate our input. And also thanks to Vanessa Marzaroli, who provided her important feedback.

Members of the Grammy award winning band Quetzal, who have been long-time listeners and supporters, and who also volunteered to create our original theme music simply for love of KPFK and Uprising.

Andrew Thomas and the staff at the Bond agency, who designed our new logo, online at wearebond.com.

And of course, we want to especially thank those people who donated to our crowd funding campaign to raise the more than $60,000 we needed, in just 30 days, including listeners of KPFK and KPFA, to make this happen. Among them are staff members of KPFK, and our family and friends, colleagues, high school and college buddies – everyone who believed in the Uprising team. We deeply thank you! Click here to see a list of donors.