Lenny McAllister Fired from WVON for on-air Call for Boycott

Lenny is a close friend and always been supportive of The Mo’Kelly Report.  I support and stand with him.  WVON…the “VOICE of the NEGRO”…is now sanctioning people for speaking up for the voiceless…

WVON should be ashamed of itself.

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From The Loop21.com

Sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. That’s exactly what political pundit, Hip-Hop Republican and CNN/TheRoot.com contributor Lenny McAllister discovered this week when he was fired from Chicago’s premiere black political talk station WVON 1690.

This is the station that put “Soul Train” host Don Cornelius on, that gave Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and several other prominent African Americans a chance to shine on air while speaking out about the nation’s poor and downtrodden.

So what led to his firing? Speaking out for the poor and downtrodden.

McAllister is a nationally known Republican political commentator who came to WVON earlier this year with the promise of having his own show. Soon his “Launching Chicago with Lenny McAllister” show was burning up the airwaves with his mix of humor, right-wing rhetoric and inside commentary. McAllister had a long career of mentoring young men in prison and rough communities based on his upbringing in Pittsburgh. He also was involved in a mentoring program for kids from Chicago’s West Side. It was that kind of compassion that got him in trouble at WVON.

On July 19th McAllister ran into one of his mentees in the city who was a bit down on his luck. McAllister had bonded with the student in large part because of their similar backgrounds. Both were teen fathers, and both had worked hard to care for their children while taking full responsibility for their actions.

His 21-year-old mentee had a 2.8 GPA at Chicago State, had been named Outstanding Cadet in his ROTC unit, was night manager at a local McDonald’s and would be deployed to the Middle East later this year. And to top it off he was a father who was supporting his 20-year-old girlfriend and their 6-day-old son.

Tragically, the mentee’s son died suddenly on a day early in July. According to McAllister, the mentee called his boss Keith Allen at McDonald’s to ask for a day off to make funeral arrangements and be with his girlfriend. The owner allegedly said something along the lines of “I don’t care – if you miss work you’re fired.” The student went to see about his girlfriend and dead child and was fired the next day. The young man told McAllister the story and the pundit went into rescue mode.

McAllister called the McDonald’s boss trying to find out the problem but said he was given the run around. So he went to the airwaves, calling out Keith Allen, who is an African-American and owns five local McDonald’s franchises. On his show, he called for a “McDonald’s Holiday,” essentially a boycott of Allen’s McDonald’s restaurants.

McAllister recalled for me what he said over the air: “If this was a white business owner and a black college student, you’d all be marching down Martin Luther King Drive (in Chicago) singing, ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Well, this is a black business owner and a black college student willing to serve our country and care for his family. What are you going to do about it?”

Listeners were furious about the firing.

FULL STORY HERE.

RELATED:

Mo’Kelly Interviews Lenny McAllister (2009) – Audio Below

Lenny McAllister Interviews Mo’Kelly (2011) – Audio Below

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and EURWEB.com. For the most recent posts of Mr. Mo’Kelly, visit https://mrmokelly.com.  Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at [email protected].

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