KPFK Offers a Lesson in Black Culture : Radio: Kwaku Person-Lynn will host the two-day program on African-Americans.

Radio show host and producer Kwaku Person-Lynn would like to rewrite the history books.

A college professor with a doctorate in African-American studies, he has the scholarly credentials to take on such a daunting task.

Instead, he has taken to the airwaves to help promote a broader understanding of history and world cultures.

“The main reason for doing this is because European and American scholars have lied to the world in writing world history,” said Person-Lynn on Wednesday. “African history has been the most distorted and maligned history in the world. . . . They don’t teach it in schools, so we have to do it by other means--radio, TV, whatever is available.”

What has been made available to Person-Lynn is 30 hours of uninterrupted air time at nonprofit Pacifica radio station KPFK (90.7-FM). From 9 a.m. to midnight today and Sunday, the station will air “African Mental Liberation Weekend,” during which Person-Lynn will interview about two dozen experts on topics ranging from “The Black Male--An Endangered Species” to “AIDS: An African Solution” to “Racism in the Criminal Justice System.” Other discussions will center on African-American children, rap music, Cuban white supremacy and the assassination of Malcolm X.

“All that we’re saying is in books, it’s out there,” said Person-Lynn, 46, an African-American studies professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The focus of the show--which will preempt regular programming on KPFK the entire weekend--is on awareness of African-American issues and a heightened appreciation for African culture. This is the fifth time Person-Lynn has hosted the show, which kicks off Black History month at the station that bills itself as “free speech radio.” This year for the first time, he will devote an entire day (today) to the ideas and philosophies of black women.

Person-Lynn attempts to define the aim of the show by explaining what it is not.

“It’s not an effort to say this group is better than that group,” he said. “It’s not like in the ‘60s when we would shout ‘I’m black and I’m proud!’ That’s old hat. . . . It’s not a racial thing. It’s an intellectual thing. It’s filling in the gaps of world history that were left out in the beginning.”

Though the majority of the guests are academics, artists or professionals--including educational policy maker Adelaide Sanford, New York Supreme Court Justice Bruce Wright, behavioral scientist and psychologist Julia Hare and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison--Person-Lynn will also interview such well-known, controversial figures as Louis Farrakhan, the American leader of the Nation of Islam movement, peace activist and actor Dick Gregory and writer Shahrazad Ali, author of “The Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman.”

The intent is not to polarize the audience, Person-Lynn said, but to present a variety of African-American points of view.

“I take great pains to make sure it doesn’t lean toward one perspective or another, that it encompasses the whole spectrum of African thinking,” he said. “It’s a global perspective. . . . It’s not just for black people, but for all people interested in historical truth.”

Person-Lynn became increasingly interested in studying African history through his love of world music. In the early ‘70s, he produced records by African, Latin-American and Asian artists at A & M Records. He became music director at KPFK in the early ‘80s.

“I came to the station wanting to change the focus of the Euro-centered music,” he said. While hosting “African World Music,” he began hearing from listeners drawn to the African perspective. “People started saying ‘We need some information. We love the music.’ So I began to investigate because I’ve always been a collector of information.”