Tune into Radio Sombra as we broadcast an LAPD police scanner from an undisclosed location, to surveil those that surveil us!

Radio Sombra was born 8 years ago in the neighborhood of El Sereno. Its creation and even some of its equipment came from other barrio based community/clandestine radios. In other words it inherited its existence from the rich history of resistance in our communities. As we continued in building a concept of independent, revolutionary media generated by the people and for the people, we found ourselves in East Los Angeles, then in Boyle Heights, all under the name of El Centro de Comunicación Comunitaria. El Centro took its name and purpose from the Caracoles Zapatista’s that house Centros de Comunicación Comunitaria, producing radio, film and in some even television. With that in mind we generated a space where the community took leadership roles within Radio Sombra and ultimately formed a core collective that helped structure and grow the radio. Somewhere along the way an opportunity to open and facilitate a larger space in the community was presented to the core, we agreed to jump in and we formed the Espacio 1839 collective. We grew as an independent space that not only became a economic base but also a community space that hosted art, workshops and of course Radio Sombra. After about 4 years Espacio 1839 ran into a major crisis, two of our collective members took over $16,000 from our collective and personal funds, along side allowing some permits to fall from being renewed which added to the threatening of the existence of the entire space. This was heartbreaking! Those we called brother, sister and compañeros chose their lifestyles above the well being of the space and its collective members. Our collective fractured and splintered. In this capitalistic and exploitative world we understood that economic hardships are a reality and we wanted to figure out a humane, revolutionary and dignified way of dealing with this issue. Ultimately the only choice left was for those collective members to leave Espacio 1839 and promise the return of the funds they had taken, this is how we ended 2015. Starting the new year we came out swinging to rebuild the space and most importantly to continue the community programming. Even with the original collective core gone and the disheartening effect of that, Radio Sombra decided to continue to stay within Espacio 1839 to insure that the space continued to be what it intended it to be, a resource for the community. Eventually later in the year of 2016 the ex-espacio members returned all funds back to the collective. Espacio 1839 triumphed and continued its mission all through 2016 into 2017. Along that journey many things changed, one important change was that we shifted from the neoliberal politics of President Obama to the ascension of the white supremacist movement of President Trump, we knew with that shift we also had to shift. Radio Sombra proposed the creation of Espacio Radio, a radio station with the purpose of being a community voice hosted within Espacio 1839 and the transition of Radio Sombra into a concrete and revolutionary media entity. Radio Sombra donated the majority of the infrastructure and Espacio 1839 bought the essential sound board equipment so that the transition would not affect the community based shows already being produced. We are proud of being a part of building the concept and a space like Espacio 1839 and ultimately building Espacio Radio. Radio Sombra will also continue to broadcast as a national/internationally curated people of color platform/radio that will help to construct our revolutionary media movement.