Kwame McDonald

Kwame McDonald was a journalist, teacher, community activist, youth sports advocate, and local media voice whose work was deeply rooted in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Through Saint Paul Neighborhood Network, he hosted "Sports Rap," using community television as a platform for conversation, visibility, and local connection. His broader work in Black community journalism, including writing for Minnesota newspapers and community publications, reflected the same commitment: making sure stories, athletes, neighborhoods, and civic concerns were seen and heard from within the community itself.

Kwame McDonald was born in 1931 in Madison, Wisconsin, graduated from Central State University in Ohio with a degree in Political Science, and came to Saint Paul in 1959 to work for the Urban League. He went on to become Executive Director of the Minnesota State Commission Against Discrimination and the Governor's Council on Youth, and spent decades as a journalist, author, activist, and community presence in the Black community of Saint Paul. At SPNN, he hosted Sports Rap for many years - a community television program that covered sports, conducted interviews, and brought figures like Senator Paul Wellstone and baseball legend Buck O'Neil into conversation with Saint Paul audiences. He wrote for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, Insight News, and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, and produced the documentary series Retrospection: Black Saint Paul, which profiled African American leaders across professional fields.

His work at SPNN connected the station's public access mission to the specific needs and stories of Saint Paul's Black community - covering civil rights, education, youth, sports, and neighborhood life with the directness and consistency of someone who had been doing that work since before community television existed. He organized youth athletic opportunities, covered women's sports when few outlets did, and worked to address gang activity in Saint Paul in the 1970s. He wrote the book Jim Griffin: Son of Rondo and sponsored the annual Wise Owl Awards to recognize community members whose work often went unrecognized. He died on October 26, 2011, at age 80. The following year, in 2012, the ACM's Jewell Ryan-White Award for Cultural Diversity was presented in his name, recognizing a career that reflected exactly what that award was designed to honor. SPNN's Kwame McDonald Studio carries his name forward, linking it to the everyday production work of community members still gathering, recording, and telling local stories.