Soul Train's Legacy

I’m seeing a lot of people talk and write about Don Cornelius passing but do not seem to comprehend the legacy Don Cornelius established while he was here with us. Don Cornelius was a pioneer who built a Black empowerment framework that was also an economic engine and knew exactly what he was doing and succeeded. As a fellow Chicago native who knows my people, know and respect those who came before me and appreciate the path they shaped for me and you to move forward, we are going to discuss Don Cornelius legacy and contribution.

Don Cornelius is from Chicago and was definitely someone who grew up with love for his people. You can check his history where he was straight hustling to get his in the Chi before joining WVON radio in the 60s. WVON means Voice of the Negro in case you didn’t know broadcasted to the Black community back then. Martin Luther King Jr. would appear regularly on WVON and most likely Don Cornelius was inspired by his presence as well as the fact he broadcasted for his people. He also carried this on television at WCIU where Soul Train got it start:



However, the late sixties was a beautiful time for brothas and sistas as we became united. More people were moving from the South up North to Chicago and cats were establishing themselves and their identity as Black. Don Cornelius was throwing parties all around Chicago as a party promoter and this is where he wanted to promote a television show and used his media industry connects to host Soul Train in Chicago.

Now Soul Train blew up and Don Cornelius moved the show out to Los Angeles for a bigger audience. Now here is where we have to take a break because this is the moment of truth. When some of us brothas or sistas make it big, what do we do? Most of us start acting like we don’t know our Black people anymore and start trying to go “mainstream” hoping to reach a bigger audience. But Don Cornelius not only kept his show Black-orientated, he pioneered Black media as we know it today and built a Black economic framework upon his success.

Soul Train was not some dance show, it was a framework that Don Cornelius used to promote his people and promote peace, love and soul in the core essence. Let’s look at each element of the Soul Train show:.................

Ta-Nehisi Coates says it well:

All parties agree that Ron Paul is not, personally, racist and that he didn't write the passages. This is comforting. I am not an anti-Semite. But give me a check to tell Harlem the Jews invented AIDS, and I'll do it.

As I've said before, we all must make our calculus in supporting a candidate or even claiming he is "good" for the debate. But it must be an honest calculus.

If you believe that a character who would conspire to profit off of white supremacy, anti-gay bigotry, and anti-Semitism is the best vehicle for convincing the country to end the drug war, to end our romance with interventionism, to encourage serious scrutiny of state violence, at every level, then you should be honest enough to defend that proposition.

What you should not do is claim that Ron Paul "legislated" for Martin Luther King Day, or claim to have intricate knowledge of Ron Paul's heart, and thus by the harsh accumulation of evidence, be made to look ridiculous.

>> ^bobknight33:

Agreed.
However how could any black person vote Democrat, the party that created the KKK to keep people from voting Republican? The Vast majority of Blacks were Republican all the wall up through Dr. Martin Luther King. Then things changed. Strange that the party of lynching became the party of entitlements which in-turned re-enslaved people. >> ^therealblankman:
All good points but I still can't believe Ron Paul, as smart as that man is, allowed that hateful racist shit to be published under his name.



Well, what happened was that the southern Democrats and "Dixiecrats" abandoned the party in droves thanks to the civil rights reforms started under JFK and consummated under Lyndon Johnson with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the later Voting Rights Act. Those same southern rednecks and racists found a warm reception in the Republican party and now form the base for that party and its radical wing, the "Tea Party". These same people are also behind the more recent gerrymandering in Texas and elsewhere, as well as the blatantly racist tactic of denying poor blacks and other minorities their franchise under the guise of "Voter Registration Reform".

Lyndon Johnson. Man, you've got to hand it to him. The man had them all fooled... they thought he was one of them, a "Good Old Boy", and would maintain the status quo of racism and segregation. He turned out to be the greatest Presidential advocate for civil rights since Lincoln. Call me a revisionist, but leaving Vietnam aside (which is impossible, I know) Johnson was truly heroic in forcing civil rights down their collective bigoted throats. A lot of heroes came out of that time, a lot of martyrs too- including Martin Luther King.

Agreed.
However how could any black person vote Democrat, the party that created the KKK to keep people from voting Republican? The Vast majority of Blacks were Republican all the wall up through Dr. Martin Luther King. Then things changed. Strange that the party of lynching became the party of entitlements which in-turned re-enslaved people. >> ^therealblankman:

All good points but I still can't believe Ron Paul, as smart as that man is, allowed that hateful racist shit to be published under his name.

>> ^vaire2ube:

murray rothbard wrote those parts of the newsletters, or someone who thought like him.
In a 1963 article, Rothbard wrote that "the Negro Revolution has some elements that a libertarian must favor, others that he must oppose. Thus, the libertarian opposes compulsory segregation and police brutality, but also opposes compulsory integration and such absurdities as ethnic quota systems in jobs. According to Rothbard biographer Justin Raimondo, Rothbard considered Malcolm X to be a "great black leader” and Martin Luther King to be favored by whites because he “was the major restraining force on the developing Negro revolution." Rothbard also compared Lyndon B. Johnson's use of troops to crush urban rioters in 1968 after King's assassination to Johnson's use of American troops in the Vietnam War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard

now, who does that sound like? The newsletter or ron paul? and was murray convinced enough of his own rightness that he used paul to get his true feelings out...
and rothbard dies in 1995, just in time for ron paul to be harassed non-stop about these things with no real recourse...


If I understand you--you are saying the Dr. Paul didn't know that these things were being said in a newsletter that had his name on it.
Okay.
Then he wasn't paying attention to something that he really should have been paying attention to. Not a glowing endorsement of his leadership abilities.

murray rothbard wrote those parts of the newsletters, or someone who thought like him.

In a 1963 article, Rothbard wrote that "the Negro Revolution has some elements that a libertarian must favor, others that he must oppose. Thus, the libertarian opposes compulsory segregation and police brutality, but also opposes compulsory integration and such absurdities as ethnic quota systems in jobs. According to Rothbard biographer Justin Raimondo, Rothbard considered Malcolm X to be a "great black leader” and Martin Luther King to be favored by whites because he “was the major restraining force on the developing Negro revolution." Rothbard also compared Lyndon B. Johnson's use of troops to crush urban rioters in 1968 after King's assassination to Johnson's use of American troops in the Vietnam War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard


now, who does that sound like? The newsletter or ron paul? and was murray convinced enough of his own rightness that he used paul to get his true feelings out...

and rothbard dies in 1995, just in time for ron paul to be harassed non-stop about these things with no real recourse...

Thanks for the website. If all you have in 20 years of newsletters, are a few scattered words like "Jew" and "Sodomy" and some trash about Martin Luther King, you prove my point for me.

You need to ask yourself this: If Ron Paul is a racist, how is he hiding it so well? How could he hide his racist hate so well for 40 years? But I fear you've already made up your mind.

the only way and i mean the ONLY way a peaceful protest by way of civil disobedience will EVER get any traction is by clogging the machine ie:blocking business,traffic and everyday functioning of not only government but everyday business.
this is not my opinion but historical fact.
see:
martin luther king.
vietnam protests of UC.
civil rights protests.
the triangle shirtwaist factory and the consequent protests for labor and the fight for unionized labor.
and these are just a few examples off the top of my head.the list is massive and does not only pertain to america but in america we have the RIGHT to assemble and the RIGHT of redress.
these protestors want to be arrested.
they want the state (in the form of police) to overstep,brutalize and abuse their authority in order to get the message out by way of conflict made violent by the people sworn to protect and serve.
every time the police (be they individual or enmasse) perpetrate violence on peaceful protestors that protest swells in numbers in a matter of days.
this was evident in the 1920's and it is evident today.

the problems of understanding arise when people give their power over to the powerful.they acquiesce to the very powers seeking to disempower them.
so we get things like "free speech zones" which are far away from the very thing being protested and most certainly no where near any business or government functions.

this is not a lib/repub issue but an american issue.for decades the government has slowly chipped away at our civil liberties and given more power to itself.this is what governments do,this is what ANY powerful institution does=keep itself relevant and IN power and the ONLY thing power fears is?
the people.
again,not my opinion but historically accurate.

this is about challenging authority.
you say that when a policemen gives a "lawful" order to disperse that should be the end of it.
i say:i question your "lawful order" as it hinders my right to assemble and give my government a redress of my grievances.
that policemen is ordering me to give up my right of redress and that is a right i will not give up.the authority of that policemen has been bestowed "by the people".the very government in which hands down orders to that policemen has been elected "by the people",and they were elected to create laws and govern "for the people" and when that machine no longer "serves the people" it must be resisted in the only way that has been known to work:
shut down the machine,
because "the people" are not multinational corporations with deep pockets who can influence legislators by way of lobbyists.we cant purchase the kind of time that a corporation can to make our case to a senator or congressmen.we cannot influence public opinion by way of tv commercials or entire networks.
but we CAN sit and stop traffic,or slow the flow of business and THAT is when they take notice.
and the response is always the same:
ignore.
and if that doesnt work?
ridicule.
if that fails?
co-opt in any way possible (see:tea party)
cant co-opt?
oppress,bully and intimidate by authoritarian means.
(guess which stage we are in now?)
and if that fails?
success.

Hypothetically, @quantumushroom, what if there were a religion that stated that white people are the true master race? Would you support their right to preach this? Their right to tell black people that they should try to be white and to try to get Asian people to go to a correction school to bleach their skin? I don't see the push for gay rights as any different to that trendy Martin Luther King and his communist buddies.

The issue of free speech is an awkward one. I think you make a powerful argument against free speech but I do believe in free speech despite your worst efforts. I suppose the thing is that you can say what you like, but that doesn't mean you should. Maybe you can legally preach bigotry - and that's what you are doing - but you should think about what you're doing and stop doing it.

>> ^aurens:

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:
Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland
(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:
No public education ... Sounds exciting.



Aye aye, was being sarcastic

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:

Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland

(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:

No public education ... Sounds exciting.

I thought it was pretty well known that the Kennedy era changed the polarity of the Democrat/Republican opinion in regards to social issues.

That should mean that appeals to pre-1960's inconsistencies are pretty much baseless. Maybe this is too complex a notion.

>> ^bobknight33:

So the poor are poo because of wall street? What BS.
Herman Cain is a bad apple because he not a Democrat. IF he was a Democrat and speak the raciest democrat trash that Democrats use to keep blacks down then he would be a good guy. Blacks have been Republicans all the way up till the president Kennedy. Dr. Martin Luther King was Republican. The Democrats have done more harm to the black man than any other group through social enslavement. Not to mention that Democrats started the KKK. If I were black why the heck would I be a Democrat? Herman Cain is a black man who sees through such bunk.

So the poor are poo because of wall street? What BS.
Herman Cain is a bad apple because he not a Democrat. IF he was a Democrat and speak the raciest democrat trash that Democrats use to keep blacks down then he would be a good guy. Blacks have been Republicans all the way up till the president Kennedy. Dr. Martin Luther King was Republican. The Democrats have done more harm to the black man than any other group through social enslavement. Not to mention that Democrats started the KKK. If I were black why the heck would I be a Democrat? Herman Cain is a black man who sees through such bunk.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Martin Luther King managed to create protests and a movement that DIDN'T get in people's faces or disrupting the business of innocent bystanders who have nothing to do with what you're protesting. He did it with a positive, uplifting, inspirational message that people of good sense could not help but agree with. These yahoos are doing the exact opposite. They couldn't be driving people AWAY from their cause any better if they were trying.


wrong wrong WRONG!
martin luther king jr knew full well the only way a peaceful protest would be effective was by interfering with business.
any protest that was even moderately successful interfered with business and the everyday machinery of government.
now we have "free speech zones"(see:RNC 2008 st paul MN) which are many times far distances from the very thing being protested.....how convenient.
this is where the protesters can be marginalized and ignored but get in the way of everyday business and NOW you will get noticed.
and the government will send its goons in to strong arm and intimidate because the business class scream bloody murder.
there will be arrests.
there will be macings.
there will be violence and yes,even sometimes murders.
all of which can now be clandestinely videotaped from a phone exposing the strong arm tactics of the government all in the name of "keeping the peace".

this aint rocket science.it is effective and it works.
your obedient slave solution just leaves the protester flaccid and ineffective.
you have the RIGHT of redress.
you have the RIGHT to assemble.
and the police are within their powers to cite or detain you for civil disobedience.
they are NOT within their powers to:maim,torture,brutalize and disregard the laws in which they were sworn to uphold.
this is about challenging power and authority and the only way to do that properly is to disrupt the machinations of power and authority.