Attorney Dawson elected to WMNF Board of Directors

TAMPA — WMNF 88.5 FM would like to introduce to the Tampa Bay area its latest member on their board of directors.

WMNF is the non-commercial, listener-sponsored community radio station operating in the city of Tampa. The station has been broadcasting in our community since 1979, and can be found on your radio at 88.5 FM.

The station provides the listening community with eclectic music as well as non-mainstream news, views and public affairs programming, including informative talk shows such as: “Sunday Forum” hosted every Sunday morning beginning at 10 a.m. by Otis Anthony, Tampa’s “Voice of the People” and The Weekly Challenger’s own Harrison Nash hosts “360º of the Blues” every Monday morning from 9-11 a.m.

Since the radio station celebrates cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and economic justice, Attorney Warren Dawson has announced his decision to accept a position on the Board of Directors of WMNF.

Dawson is the veteran civil rights and trial lawyer, who among other things, fought in the Federal Courts for more than 27 years as lead counsel in Manning v. The School Board, a school desegregation case that involved the Hillsborough County School District, one of the largest School Districts in the nation.

He also intervened as counsel in Warren v. The City of Tampa, a voting rights case that ultimately eliminated the racially repressive at-large system of electing members of the city council in Tampa, and members of the county commission in Hillsborough County. Without the necessity of a lawsuit, he also challenged and greatly influenced the historic change in the system by which the State of Florida elects State Representatives and State Senators to its legislature.

Both as a lawyer and a concerned citizen over the period of the last 46 years, Dawson has led or counseled nearly every community effort to make Tampa and Hillsborough County more racially diverse and gender inclusive. Those efforts include a year-long fight to prevent the development of a for-profit theme park in Tampa that would have featured a slave ship, and led a successful effort to prevent the National Football League from featuring a racially segregated local event (Gasparilla) during its Super Bowl in Tampa.

As an organized bar leader, Dawson has served his fellow lawyers and the legal profession in a number of positions. In this regard, he was one of the founders of the Edgecomb Bar Association; he served as the 40th President of the National Bar Association; he is a Life Member of The Fellows of the American Bar Association Foundation and was the National President of the Howard University Law Alumni Association.

In a 1992 Tampa Tribune editorial comment, it mentions that Dawson “has blended a law practice with a dedicated, lifelong pursuit of justice and equality for all.  In doing so, Dawson (has) demonstrated backbone, tenacity, diplomacy and courage…”

It is expected that he will do no less during his service on the WMNF Board of Directors.