Burton

(From Bay City News) A public radio host who died in a rollover crash near his Oakland
home early Saturday morning had deep Oakland roots and loved to barbecue for
his friends, family and neighbors, his nephew said Monday.

“He was a guy that you could make friends with within an hour,”
said Wesley Burton’s nephew, 19-year-old Tlaca Hernandez.

Hernandez has raised nearly $20,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to
help support Burton’s wife and three young children — a crucial source of
support as Burton did not have life insurance.

Burton was killed in a crash Saturday (April 18) at about 2:20 a.m. on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near 59th Street, according to police. He was trapped inside the
vehicle and despite life-saving measures, was pronounced dead there.

He worked as a board operator and co-host at Berkeley’s KPFA 94.1. His two shows, “Sideshow Radio” and “After Hours,” played
hip-hop, R&B, soul and jazz music late at night.

Hernandez, who first met Burton when he was only 6 years old, said
his uncle had always loved music and the two played drums together when
Hernandez was young.
Burton married Hernandez’s aunt, Lucrecia, and since then was like
a father to him, he said. Burton’s young children, Santiago, Enrique, and
Samaya, were like siblings to him.

“Whenever somebody thought of a good father, it was him,”
Hernandez said.
That Burton was such a good and devoted father was a special
accomplishment because Burton himself grew up without a father, Hernandez
said.

His fundraising page is online at
http://www.gofundme.com/wesleyburton. (Photo courtesy of KPFA.)