WASHINGTON, February 1, 2012–Don Cornelius is dead, and I need to say to him, "thank you."
Soul Train got its start in Chicago in 1971 when I was twelve. Cornelius was a Chi-Town radio D.J. before coming up with what was the African-American counterpart to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.
I can safely say that the first African-American kids I spent time with were those who happened to be on Don Cornelius’ Saturday morning half-hour music and dance show.
It was not segregation, it's just where I lived.
I grew up in a house where racism and hate did not exist; my father served in WWII and saw enough of both. I think that is why I grew up intolerant to intolerance.
In 1970 the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois was filled with the descendants of the German and mid-European families that had founded it. It was not “mixed,” and it was not for any nefarious reason.
The world was smaller then than it is for kids now. There were no super malls. North Elementary School was small, no more than 20 classrooms on two floors of a red brick building, still standing and being used, built in 1938.
Rob and Laura slept in separate beds on the Dick Van Dyke show and we were all shocked by a bikini clad Goldie Hawn on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In.
Back then we all walked to school. Going into Junior High, which is now middle school, classrooms got bigger, though they are still small by today’s standards, and the kids primarily stayed the same.
There were no metros or inexpensive transportation or Internet connectivity that allowed us to journey too far out of our enclave.
It just had not yet happened. But we knew about racism. It is not that we were sheltered, it's just where I grew up. The time and place of my life.
The riots around the 1968 Democratic Convention and images of young soldiers, Black and White where on the news every night. A young (White) woman on our street was investigated as being a member of the “Black Panthers” organization.
The memory of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy’s assassinations, as well as that of Dr. Martin Luther King, were still recent memories.
But those were adult issues.
Don Cornelius and Soul Train introduced me to kids. Like me.
And I learned to love soul music, rhythm and blues. And while I don’t have a specific memory of watching American Bandstand, I do remember Don Cornelius, the colorful suits and the great bands I would not have otherwise gotten to know and learned to love.
Ike & Tina Turner - Proud Mary by mister_funkyman
Don Cornelius brought the great Aretha Franklin, the sensual Barry White, the Chi-Lites, the voice of Natalie Cole, whose father Nat King was often heard, and of course Ike and Tina Turner into my living room where we watched with our bowls of cereal.
My most vivid memory is Tina, with her blatant sexuality, talking about being ‘nice and easy’ but finishing ‘nice and rough” before breaking into “Proud Mary.”
I was fourteen then and wow - she was something.
It may have been the first time I heard Tina Turner, an artist that I have enjoyed for more than forty years. This was before MTV and iPods. The radio stations were AM only.
And watching the video, well I still get goose bumps.
Don Cornelius did so much more for “my” generation than just give a showcase to some of the best musicians of the 20th Century. He broke barriers. I can still hear his baritone voice welcoming us to the hippest half hour of the week.
And for that I say thank you Don Cornelius. Peace, Love and Soul.
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Remembering Don Cornelius: What Soul Train did for Black American youth
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