John DePetro works the same morning time slot as Imus at Citadel broadcasting’s sister station, WPRO, 630 AM.

JOURNAL FILES / Gretchen Ertl

Radio host Don Imus returned to the airwaves yesterday with an opening statement full of contrition and a roster of guests who were willing to forgive.

The host of the Imus in the Morning show was fired in April from his jobs at CBS Radio and MSNBC after calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” It wasn’t the first time that racial slurs had been made on his show.

The Rutgers team was front and center in Imus’ opening statement yesterday morning, delivered live at New York’s Town Hall. His nationally syndicated show, on Citadel Broadcasting, is now carried locally on WSKO, 790 AM, weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m..

Imus spoke of meeting with the women the night he was fired for what he called yesterday “an essentially reprehensible remark about innocent people who did not deserve to be made fun of.”

He recalled that, earlier in the controversy, he had apologized for his remarks. “I had said . . . I was a good person who said a bad thing. And I thought about how irrelevant that was, because whether you’re a good person or not is completely unrelated — doesn’t give you a license to make any kind of remark you feel like making, and doesn’t minimize the impact on who you make it about. . . .

“I will never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret or feel foolish that they accepted my apology and forgave me. And no one else will say anything on my program that will make anybody think that I didn’t deserve a second chance.”

He promised to make his show a focal point in an honest discussion of race relations. “I know the media said that as soon as they could get me out of the room, they were going to have this national dialogue on race relations in the major media, and what could and couldn’t be said on radio and television. I must have missed that. But I’m willing to have an obligation.”

He compared his ambitions on this score to his efforts fighting for the Combating Autism Act. “Many were annoyed that I wouldn’t shut up about it. . . . There isn’t any reason we can’t do that to learn how to talk to one another. And I pledge that I’ll do that.

“But other than that,” he said, wrapping up his opening statement, “not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I’m back on the radio.” He then played the Montgomery Gentry song “Some People Change,” which might as well have been written for the situation.

Imus’ supporting cast included producer Bernard McGuirk, who had also been fired for his role in instigating the Rutgers comments, as well as new cast members Karith Foster and Tony Powell, both African-American. Delivering the sports report, Powell said it was an honor to be on “the Tyler Perry version of the Imus in the Morning show.”

The host’s bite was back in later segments. He said the reason he signed a five-year contract with Citadel Broadcasting was, “that’s how long it’s going to take to get even with everybody.” Speaking of some of his critics, he said, “I wasn’t thinking these folks I made famous and made rich had a lot of courage, by the way.”

Later, speaking of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Imus expressed confusion over Mormonism. “Is their guy Jesus?”

“Donny Osmond,” someone on the stage responded.

At the same time, he said of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who had called for his firing in April but also said several months later that he should return to radio, “I don’t know what you think of Al Sharpton, but if I’m picking somebody to be in a foxhole with, I’m picking Al Sharpton before I’m picking a lot of them people.”

“Imus was fired,” Sharpton said at a press conference in New York yesterday. “The move to hold people accountable was won. Whether he can, in the course of time, redeem himself, time will tell.”

On his show, Imus recalled having a group of kids at the Imus Ranch for Kids With Cancer over the summer that was “40 percent minority and 10 percent African-American. I had some explaining to do.”

Later, he said, “I think things worked out the way they should have worked out.”

The first guest was historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who finished her segment by telling Imus, “I’m so glad you’re back.” Republican senator and presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, signed off telling Imus, “Welcome back, old friend.” There was also a silly but inoffensive skit involving mimicry of former President Clinton.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., also a presidential candidate, credited Imus and his wife, Deirdre, for their work on the Combating Autism Act. “People finally understood what autism was.”

Not everyone was as quick to forgive Imus as his guests.

Clifford R. Monteiro, president of the Providence branch of the NAACP, said he hadn’t listened to yesterday’s program and wouldn’t for at least a week or so.

“I don’t want to hear his first day as much as what he does when the spotlight isn’t on him,” Monteiro said. “. . . I think forgiveness and turning the other cheek is an important commodity, but I hope he’s learned his lesson.”

Imus’ behavior going forward is the key, Monteiro said, including financial help for those in need. “If he’s done nothing, [his return is] just an economic decision someone made.”

Monteiro said that Imus’ attempts at humor over the years constituted “instilling inferiority complexes” in women and nonwhite people, which makes him “a dangerous person,” particularly in an election year. “When people make jokes about the plight of black people and other minorities, I take that very seriously. I’m committed to nonviolence, so the only thing I can do is violently turn the radio off.”

Monteiro said that he had been to a New England-area conference of the NAACP over the weekend, and Imus’ return wasn’t discussed. They’re working on a Wall Street protest Dec. 10 over the subprime mortgage crisis, and “we’ve got bigger issues.”

Imus’ deal with Citadel puts him on 240 radio stations nationwide, and on cable TV’s RFD-TV network. The move also gives Citadel two morning-talk hosts in the same market, with John DePetro in the same morning drive-time time slot at sister station WPRO, 630 AM.

DePetro’s show made no mention of the new competition, instead concentrating on stories about the presidential election, the weekend’s vote in Venezuela and the firing of West Warwick Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer.

DePetro, who used to follow Imus’ show on WHJJ and says he was a guest on the show 15 times, was optimistic about the future of his show.

“This market is so rife right now with local issues and stories,” DePetro said, noting the state fiscal crisis, the potential for layoffs and the Operation Dollar Bill investigation. “I just think that grabs people’s attention locally more than ‘How is Rudy Giuliani gonna rally the troops in Iowa?’ . . . From a competitive sense, there’s no reason for us to adjust anything.”

He noted that Imus no longer had the resources of NBC and MSNBC when it came to hauling in high-powered journalists as guests and had new people in the cast. “You’re changing the dynamic.”

Imus’ Rhode Island broadcast started with a technical glitch: For roughly the first 25 minutes, he was on WSKO’s FM station, at 99.7, and Opie & Anthony, the syndicated morning show that was supposed to air on the FM station, was on the AM. “We just had to flip a switch,” said WSKO program director Ron St. Pierre. He promised that everyone would be on the proper stations this morning.

With reports from the Associated Press.

rmassimo@projo.com