“Soul Train” host Don Cornelius was found dead at his home in Los Angeles, February 1, in what appeared to be a suicide. Cornelius integrated music television by bringing black music and culture into America’s living rooms through his dance show, “Soul Train,” one of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history. He played a critical role in spreading the music and culture of black America to the world.
“Don Cornelius was very clear: this was going to be his vision. It was going to celebrate the diversity of blackness. It was going to celebrate the vitality of blackness. And it was going to be available to folks in the mainstream,” Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman.
Neal, who also reflects on the recent deaths of Whitney Houston and the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer, Etta James, explains how Cornelius was a political activist, giving Al Sharpton his first public platform and ultimately reshaping the landscape of modern American music.