But that still wouldn’t cover the asking price. A group of black doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers.and they ended up investing over 300,000 dollars. He tapped prominent community members from his circle. To buy this station would cost Percy 1.9 million dollars. It represented the idea of putting a black radio station in the hands of black ownership. Pierre: When it went off the air you could hear farm equipment being sold out in Fort Wayne, Indiana.īut to Percy Sutton this tiny part-time radio station represented something. And so if you tuned in late at night looking for soul music, you’d hear instead the bleed from this huge superstation out in the midwest, WOWO, whose signal was so powerful, it would colonize other available frequencies on the AM dial, including WLIB at night. WLIB was so small, that it didn’t even broadcast full time. That was the term at the time? literally called race music?ĪLEX: And Pierre says owners of these stations didn’t believe that the black audience had spending power, and so the owners didn’t invest that many resources trying to reach a black audience. And people who couldn't figure out what to do with their radio stations decided that they would play soul music or race music because they couldn't figure out what else to do with the radio station, so do they did that.Īlex: Right. At the end of the dial that means it's a weak signal. I like to say that black radio, was the radio station at the end of the dial. An AM station with the call letters WLIB. He already owned a small newspaper, but one day Percy learned of an opportunity to buy a local radio station. And according to Pierre, Percy was always looking for ways to elevate black voices in the community. He was the Manhattan borough president for 12 years.which at the time made him the highest ranking black politician in the entire state of New York. And the second bet, that a brand new and completely untested technology, would help them reach that audience.Īnd the story of that new venture, and how it played a hand in the creation of so much we see and hear in culture today, it starts back with Pierre’s father, Percy Sutton, who was a prominent figure in civil rights movement in 1960’s New York.ĪLEX: Percy was a former Tuskegee airman, a businessman, a lawyer - He represented Malcolm X and politician. The first bet: that there was an audience for the thing they were launching. Pierre: But it is true, she was my first and favorite for a very long time.ĪLEX: The venture Pierre helped launch, and Keisha later helped him build, required making a bet. Keisha: I am his first born child by 25 years. On today’s show I’m talking to some people who helped launch something, based on that kind of faith. And faith that you in particular are the one to deliver it. Faith that the new thing you’re launching is something the world needs. Just a quick note at the top, there is some light cursing in this episode. the show where I talk to athletes, artist s, entrepreneurs, visionaries of all kinds - about their successes and their failures, and what they’ve learned from both. ALEX: From Gimlet, I’m Alex Blumberg, This is Without Fail.
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