Ken Hamblin, the self-titled “Black Avenger”, was host of the Ken Hamblin Show which was syndicated nationally on Entertainment Radio Networks.  His show peaked in the 1990s, but he left the air, without warning, in July of 2003 due to a contractual dispute with his syndicator, the American Views Radio Network.

 

Born the son of first generation West Indian immigrants, Hamblin hasn’t forgotten his roots in the poverty of Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood.  He remembers as a young child having to ride the “A” train all night with his mother and his four brothers and sisters because they had been evicted.  But despite those memories, he is at odds with underclass communities today because he believes they are not instilling in their children the values they need to break out of the welfare mold that perpetuates illiteracy, poverty and a lack of self-reliance.

 

Hamblin, based in Denver, Colorado, is also an author of two books:  Pick a Better Country (1997) and Plain Talk and Common Sense from the Black Avenger  (1999).

 

Hamblin was a photographer for The Detroit Free Press covering the 1968 Democratic Convention, the March on Washington and race riots in Detroit.  His dramatic street photos from that period also appeared in Time, Life and The New York Times.

 

After making the transition to cinematography, Hamblin filmed and produced numerous documentaries, including “Arson for Profit”, aired by several ABC TV affiliates and “Take a Sad Song and Make It Better”, purchased by the Michigan Governor’s Office of Drug Abuse.  Later he became a host and producer for WTVS, the Detroit Public Television station.

 

Hamblin had a long-running local talk program on the powerful KOA radio in Denver, a station heard across the western and central U.S.  Hamblin hosted the early evening shift, which he worked the evening of June 18, 1984, when Alan Berg, one of the station’s biggest and controversial hosts, was gunned down.

 

Hamblin gained national attention when his show, then carried on another Denver radio station, was broadcast on CSPAN during the early 1990s.  He show was heard on KNUS and KXKL radio in Denver, as well as across the U.S.

 

Hamblin lives in Denver and Frisco, Colorado, with his wife Sue, a writer and corporate marketing consultant.  He has two children, one in Denver and the other in Kansas City.  He has two grandchildren.