Charles Laquidara - Biography - Broadcasting Career - Social Activism

Social Activism

From the earliest period of KPPC freeform radio and continuing throughout his career, Laquidara has participated in social activism and promoted a strongly held liberal political stance. In his memoir of their years at KPPC entitled Riding on the Ether Express, Dave Pierce recalls a close friendship with Laquidara, who was an early vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. In December 1968, just prior to Laquidara's return to Massachusetts, Pierce and his wife and children went with Laquidara to Elysian Park in Los Angeles for a fund raising gathering they had helped promote on the radio for the Free Clinic, a local charity. The event, which was at that time a frequent counterculture form of activism, attracted 5,000 people, many of whom openly smoked marijuana. However, without warning or announced intentions, shortly after the event began several dozen carloads of Los Angeles riot police appeared and proceeded to forcibly remove the crowd from the park. After escaping a full scale assault from the police with the Pierces, Laquidara headed immediately to KPPC and delivered a scathing ten-minute on-air diatribe against the LAPD.

Laquidara continued his sometimes controversial political activism while on-air at WBCN in Boston. Following a commercial for a camera store, he denounced Honeywell corporation anti-personnel munitions, which brought on a lawsuit from the advertiser that sold Honeywell cameras. His alter ego, Duane Glasscock, was fired for telling listeners to send "a bag of shit to the Arbitron research bureau". Arbitron is a corporation that provides the radio industry with market research and listener counts, and Laquidara used Duane to question the integrity of the powerful company. He drew national attention in 1988 for leading anti-Apartheid protests and a boycott of Shell Oil.