Cornelius, Donald Cortez “Don”

Impact on the world

A former Chicago Police Department officer and insurance salesman who spent $400 on a broadcasting course in 1966, Cornelius worked his way from WVON radio to hosting a local Chicago news program before launching Soul Train as a live local dance show in 1970, negotiating a deal in which his television bosses, skeptical of the concept, effectively gave him ownership of the program outright — a decision that within two years, following national syndication and a $1 million Johnson Products sponsorship deal, made Cornelius one of the first Black media owner-producers in American television. At a time when Black musicians and dancers appeared on television almost exclusively as guests on white-hosted programs, Soul Train gave figures from James Brown and Aretha Franklin to Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston a stage built for and by Black culture, popularized the “Soul Train Line” dance format, and spun off the long-running Soul Train Music Awards in 1987; Cornelius hosted every episode himself from 1970 until his 1993 retirement and remained the show’s guiding creative force until its 2006 conclusion. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Ahmet Ertegun Award category in 2023, more than a decade after his 2012 death.

Life & background

Born September 27, 1936, in Chicago and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Cornelius graduated from DuSable High School in 1954, served 18 months in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, and worked as an insurance salesman and Chicago police officer before entering broadcasting in 1966. He created and hosted Soul Train from 1970 until his 1993 retirement as host, continuing as executive producer until 2006, and sold the show’s library to MadVision Entertainment in 2008; he died in Los Angeles on February 1, 2012, at age 75.

Sources

1. Encyclopædia Britannica; Television Academy; Encyclopedia.com