Outspoken Denver Radio Talk Show Host...

Ken Hamblin refers to Denver’s black community as “Darktown.” On his talk show, he rails against quotas, welfare dependency, illegitimate pregnancies and the “blame whitey” syndrome.

If this sounds like your typical radio rabble-rouser, think again: Hamblin is black. And though ostracized by his community and vilified by black leaders, he is determined to speak out.

“If I can motivate one black or Hispanic kid to say . . . ‘I’m going to show him all Hispanics and blacks aren’t that way,’ then it’s worth it,” he said.

“We’ve tried it all--more welfare, lowering standards. I would like, just once, for these kids to say: ‘. . . make it harder.’ ”

His forums are his talk show on radio station KNUS--his colleagues call him “The Black Avenger”--and a twice-weekly column in the Denver Post.

Both have drawn attention--good and bad. The idea, he told the New York Times, was to say things “that a white person couldn’t get away with.”

“I want to know why 60% of black babies are born out of wedlock. Is that the fault of white people? I want to know why so many black kids can’t speak proper English. I want to know why black people can’t pass a civil service examination. The excuse is that it’s culturally biased. Well, I’d like to know what could possibly be culturally biased on a test for a firefighter.”

Now 53, he has been on the air for 11 years; at first, his was a pleasant, liberal, unaccented voice that gave no clue he was black.

But gradually, Hamblin--a successful businessman who owns his own plane, a boat, a fine home and several sandwich restaurants--became more strident.

In so doing, he earned fans, and enemies.

In December, during a meeting in Denver, the National Black Caucus vowed to complain to the Federal Communications Commission about Hamblin’s “racial epithets” and threatened a convention boycott of Denver if his remarks are not toned down. It urged the Post to drop Hamblin’s column.

The caucus criticized Hamblin’s references to “Darktown,” and to those who live there as “Darktown dwellers,” and “promoters of violence.” California State Rep. Diane Watson complained that Hamblin’s description of caucus members as “spooks” exceeded the bounds of protected free speech.

Hamblin retorted that free speech “is something dark little people like you (the caucus) could never understand. Dark, because your hearts are dark.”

Hamblin said the caucus should listen to his message: “There is no room for the black parasite or for the Hispanic parasite. . . . We must become competitive. . . . We can’t blame white people.”

The Post, however, responded to the caucus’ complaint by announcing his column would be edited more closely.

Editorial Page Editor Chuck Green said Hamblin has become “increasingly acerbic and increasingly strident,” and has “accelerated his use of words that infuriate the black political Establishment and many black citizens.”

“By eliminating the detracting slurs, his message might well take on greater clarity,” Green said.

Then, in January, Hamblin was suspended from KNUS for three days and his Denver Post column was dropped for two weeks after he was charged with misdemeanor harassment. A KNUS co-worker accused him of pushing her against a desk and simulating sex at a New Year’s Eve party.

Hamblin denies he did anything improper, and there is no indication that the suspensions will tame his tongue.

The son of a New York City police officer, Hamblin grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. He attended Brooklyn College for 10 months after a four-year hitch in the Army, then joined a Congress of Racial Equality voter registration group in 1960.

“I’ve been chased by KKK members in Greensboro, N.C., and in Montauk. I was in a car not just with black brothers, but with white guys and white women,” he said. “And we were all the enemy.”

“And when I speak to groups with African brothers who now have foreign names and foreign clothing, I remember those people with names like Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, and I remember Emmett Till. I lived it. And when I saw ‘Eyes on the Prize’ on PBS, I cried.”

He has no time for what he calls “The Soul Patrol,” black community members who dictate politically correct black fashion and street talk.

And he is unwaveringly critical of Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and other members of the black Establishment. He accuses them of guiding blacks into government dependency, a morass of broken families and unwed mothers, and a victim-entitlement mentality.

As a result, Denver’s most outspoken black man is shunned, no longer welcome at parties and gatherings. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

But he has his supporters. After the National Black Caucus attacked Hamblin, about 500 people called KNUS to express their support for him.

The Rocky Mountain News, Denver’s other major daily newspaper, defended Hamblin’s right to state his opinions: “Clearly Hamblin represents a minority opinion within the minority community, but so what? Cannot the majority of black lawmakers withstand the occasional rough-edged critic?”

And Mike Rosen, a conservative talk show host on KOA and a contributing columnist to the Post, also rose to Hamblin’s defense.

“Hamblin has caught their (black leaders’) attention because he threatens their authority. If they don’t crush him now, other articulate, independently thinking blacks may do the same.”