In Black America; Percy Sutton

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. I was a trial judge advocate with the Air Force during the Korean conflict. I was trying a variety of cases, military cases, and as a matter of fact, that's where I honed my abilities as a lawyer, and I can remember very vividly. I was the first black person assigned to the Air Base at Westover Air Force Base and they had never had a black lawyer. And I remember the general in command, Brigadier General said, you know we want you, we're happy to have you here, though we know that nobody will select you as counsel. At first, he said in six or eight months, everything would be all right.

He said, we don't just want colored people selecting you. Well of course the fact that matter was, I was there less than a week when this little white boy from North Carolina came and said, cap and sir, will you fin me? And those were the nicest words I'd ever heard, a southerner saying, cap and sir, will you fin me in a literate young white boy? That was my first case, and fascinating case it was. The late person, E. Sutton, former chairman of Intercity Broadcasting, Incorporated. Sutton was a pioneer in figure who represented Malcolm X as the young attorney and became one of the nationals prominent African-American political and business leaders. He was the longest serving that had in Burrow President and for more than a decade, the highest ranking African-American elected official in New York City. As an entrepreneur, he was credited with leading the revitalization of Harlem, New York, including the restoration of the world famous Apollo Theater. In 1971 Sutton began investing in media companies.

He was part of a group that bought the New York Amsterdam News, the nation's largest African-American newspaper. The same year the group brought WLIB AM, making it the first African-American-owned radio station in New York City. In 1974, he and his investors bought WBLS FM and the group Intercity Broadcasting, grew to own at various times, 19 radio stations across the country, and cable franchises in Queen and Philadelphia. Sutton died on December 26, 2009. He was 89. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, legendary civil rights attorney and businessman, Percy E. Sutton, In Black America. Well, because I knew where the power was, and the power is still there. Now the power is in communications. This mic that you're holding to my mouth is the most powerful element, there it is. It's more powerful than politics, because it is a thing that gets you elected.

No longer do we have spokespeople who go around and speak for you, but now it is television, it is radio, the two most dynamic realities with regard to power. So I got into it politics because it was a natural thing that flowed from the civil rights movement. The reason I ran for public office in 1964 was nothing new because I'd run for party position at public office since 1953. When I lost for 11 consecutive years, year after year after year, I would either run for district leader, which is a leadership role within the party on county commitment, another leadership role within the party, a delegate, another leadership role off of the assembly. And I would lose when I ran myself, I would lose when I sponsored somebody, I lost and I lost and I lost until I finally won in 1964. First of all, E. Sutton was a multi-fascident leader in the fields of law, communication, business, and civil rights.

He was a stunt pilot, freedom writer, trained conductor, military and television officer, civil rights attorney, broadcast company owner, TV producer, and borough president. Born Percy Ellis Sutton on November 24, 1920, in San Antonio, Texas, he was the youngest of 15 children, both parents were schoolteachers and entrepreneurs. And supported himself with odd jobs while attending three historic black colleges, Preview A&M University, Hampton Institute, and Tuskegee Institute. In 1942, Sutton joined the army, there he became a skilled World War II pilot, serving as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, also he earned combat mental as an intelligence officer. In 1951, he earned a law degree from Brooklyn College Law School, laid that same year with his brother, Judge Oliver C. Sutton, and George Coverton, he set up a law practice in New York City's Harlem District. During the peak of the civil rights movement, he became a nationally recognized civil rights attorney, representing Malcolm X and Shigger Ray Robinson.

In the late 1960s, Sutton turned his attention to politics, becoming a New York state assemblyman. He was also a senior member of a group of prominent Harlem politicians who became known as the gang of four. The gang was the first seriously regarded African American candidate for mayor when he ran in 1977. In the summer of 1984, in Black America, traveled to New York City to speak with this legendary Texan. I was a trial judge advocate with the Air Force during the Korean conflict. I was trying a variety of cases, military cases, and as a matter of fact, that's where I honed my abilities as a lawyer, and I can remember very vividly, I was the first black person assigned to the air base at West River Air Force Base, and they'd never had a black lawyer. I remember the general in command, Brigadier General said, you know, we want you, we're happy to have you here, though we know that most nobody will select you as counsel. At first, he said, in six or eight months, everything would be all right.

He said, we don't just want colored people selecting you. Well, of course, the fact of the matter was, I was there less than a week when this little white boy from North Carolina came and said, cap and sir, will you fin me? And those were the nicest words I'd ever heard, a southerner, saying, cap and sir, will you fin me in a literate young white boy? That was my first case, and fascinating case it was. In 1961, you elected New York City's NAACP's president. Why did you particularly become involved with the organization at that time and what accomplishments did you achieve? I had been, of course, the president for some time. I'm sorry, I had been an NAACP since I was a child. My first arrest occurred when I was 11 years of age in San Antonio, Texas, when they arrested me for disturbing literature in the youth council of the NAACP in San Antonio. I was trying to get some Negroes or collards, as we would call them, as men working on trash

wagons. So I'd been in the NAACP, I'd been active in Speaker's Bureau, I'd been active in a number of areas when I became president, I'd been attorney for the NAACP here in New York. Together with my brother, Oliver, who was also from Texas, all from Finland, who was my law partner, who was dead now, unfortunately. In 1968, you and Congressman Charles Ringo formed the Harlem Democratic Club. Why was it such an important organization to form at that time? That's when we came together. I had a club going from 1953. That's when he joined me. No, he didn't join me in 1968. He joined me in 1963 and he became my council when I was in the state legislature. And then when I left the legislature to become President Manhattan in 1966, he became the Assemblyman.

And then I ran him against Adam Powell in 1970 for Congress, and he won. We call him, he won by 100 folks, and we call him landslide rank, so it really was a landslide. And we didn't run him against Powell because we didn't have respect for him. We ran against him because we felt that Mr. Powell was going to try to deliver over the congressional seat to someone else that we didn't think was as good as Charlie Ringo. Was the organization basically a political arm were you all involved in some of the social consciousness of that time? We were, as a matter of fact, all of our political activities grew out of our civil rights activities. We made the transition from civil rights to politics. We learned our politics in the civil rights organizations, citizens and demonstrations going to jail and things of that nature. I also understand you were Malcolm X's lawyer. What kind of a person was Malcolm X and how did you become his attorney? I was Malcolm X's lawyer, just as I am now lawyer for Jesse Jackson, a lawyer, he has a

number of lawyers. I was the only lawyer that Malcolm had. I became his lawyer's result of a debate when, of course, of a debate or discussion on radio one evening, I was taking an integrationist position and he was taking a separationist position and he said, just in the casual conversation while we were waiting to go on the air, he said, oh, you wouldn't represent anybody. He said, you ought to be taking all kinds of kids. I said, well, I've taken the Communist Party's position. I've taken revolutionaries before. He said, yeah, you wouldn't represent me. I said, oh, yes, I would and that's where I became his lawyer on a challenge and I enjoyed my representation of him. What type of reputation do Malcolm X have here particularly in the New York area? I'm familiar with the reputation he had in Detroit, but coming to New York and making more or less a name for himself. When I met Malcolm X, he was already a charismatic leader.

He was already head of the mosque. I was not there when he was developing. He was already established when I met him. So it was Malcolm X embracing Persia Sutton and giving him assistance. I was not giving him—it was not Persia Sutton reaching out for Malcolm X. So I did not get to know him until he was of some stature. What kind of reputation did he have? He had the reputation of being a charismatic leader, the most powerful, only man that could assemble 25 to 100,000 people at 125th Street in Seventh Avenue, the most dynamic person that we had on the scene in America, moving in a revolutionary manner. So the reputation was one of strength, the reputation was one of loyalty, the reputation was one of aggressiveness, the reputation was one of sophistication, and the reputation was one of being an excellent orator, and he was all of those. Being an attorney and also working in the military, but you also found that it was something else that Persia Sutton could contribute.

So you ran for the New York Assembly in 1964. Why did you particularly want to become a politician? Well because I knew where the power was, and the power is still there. Now the power is in communications. This mic that you're holding to my mouth is the most powerful element, there it is. It's more powerful than politics, because it is a thing that gets you elected. No longer do we have spokespeople who go around and speak for you. Now it is television, it is radio, the two most dynamic realities with regard to power. So I got into it because it was a natural thing that flowed from the civil rights movement. The reason I ran for public office in 1964 was nothing new because I'd run for party position at public office since 1953, and I'd lost for 11 consecutive years, year after year after year, I would either run for district leader on county commitment, another leadership role within the party, a delegate, another leadership role off of the assembly, and I would

lose when I ran myself, I would lose when I sponsored somebody, I lost and I lost until I finally won in 1964. One of your biggest accomplishments during that time in New York, in your opinion, I also understand that you got the other black assemblyman together as far as the cohesive body. We organized the first that we know of, the first caucus of black legislators of any import in America. What we did was we organized ourselves so that we brought off a revolution in the state legislature, up until that time, there were no significant jobs, no important jobs being held by blacks. I'm not talking about the legislators, I'm talking about a legislature has people who are searching at arms, they have clerks, they have a variety of other jobs that are available. We had never, as black people, occupied any of those positions, but by bringing all of us together, we were able to get on important committees as legislators, the committees we

had not been on before, getting important positions in the administration of the legislature and getting our names on bills that we never had the opportunity to get on before. For example, I became the leader in divorce and abortion reform in the state of New York. That was unthinkable years before. They always assigned you to things like housing and courts, things that they felt you knew something about it, and we felt we knew something about a lot more than that. That attitude that blacks don't know anything about anything, he said welfare, education, housing, and the judiciary. We wanted to get into insurance, we wanted to get into codes that is making up all of the laws. We wanted to get into a variety of other areas as chairpersons or assistant chairpersons or vice chairs of various committees. We wanted to be able to go around the state conducting hearings, and we got that. I became, as I said, the leader, not the black leader, but the leader of everyone in divorce

reform and abortion reform. You were a moral president. One of the duties and responsibilities of a moral president, you were in Manhattan and you're a biggest accomplishment in that position. With regard to the question you asked me before, which I didn't answer completely, as to what was my biggest accomplishment, my biggest accomplishment was in the state legislature was, one, I was organizing the legislator's, secondly, was the changing of the divorce laws, and thirdly, dramatic change of the divorce laws so as to do away with this obligation of having to catch someone in adultery to get a divorce or to lie about it or to get an annulment on the terms where you had to lie about it, and with regard to abortion law, we changed the law so as to permit abortions on the certain circumstances, and the theory that women have a right to control their own bodies.

I feel this very strongly, and so those were the changes, those were our accomplishments there. Together with being able to be a part of legislation, changing legislation with regard to changing the laws, with regard to housing education, the usual thing, and giving leadership there. Then of course, with regard to my being burrowed person, what is the job of a burrowed person? The city of New York is divided into five counties or five boroughs, and what used to be the city of New York is now the borough of Manhattan until 1980, it was entirely of city of New York. When Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx and Staten Island were all made apart of the city of New York, and what used to be a mayor, it would be a mayor anywhere else, is here a burrowed person, and you have a central mayor, and the burrowed person served to represent their burrows in a central body called the Board of Estimate. The Board of Estimate is in charge of fixing the budget, raising with regard to allocating the money from the budget to a capital budget for construction of schools and hospitals and

things of that physical structures, and the expense budget, which is for the operation of the various agencies of government, police, fire, education, hospitals, the variety of other services that deliver. You're doing power, or you exercise power, in the Board of Estimate as a burrowed president by having supervision over the delivery of services in your burrow, and you gain that power by having participated in the construction of the budget for your burrow. Zoning, all zoning, all franchises, it is this method by which you gain power. I guess the thing that I remember best about my, and I guess I remembered best newspaper articles, it's said that I was the best burrowed president in the history of New York City, whether that's true or not, I don't know. I do know that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being the conscience, if you will, of the Board of Estimate. I enjoyed being allowed by my colleagues on the Board of Estimate to exercise power

that I didn't really have, because I can relate well to them, and they let me invade their burrows and help them in the question of the, with regard to housing and education and things that are needed in my community, and all black communities and poor communities in this city. So I enjoyed my stay there, but the thing that I think they'll be, they'll remember me best for all was the development of the concept in all of the burrows, of what is called a burrowed community board, a community board within a burrow. That's where we have 50 people assigned to a community board, appointed by the burrow president, with the consent of the various council members in here as a herbura, and then having them functioned by meeting once a month and passing on all changes of zoning, all franchises, all budgets, and things of that nature, so that people within a community have a sense of participation in their government, a close participation that you don't have anywhere else in the country that we know of.

Why and when did you start putting together in a city broadcasting corporation? When I was 13 years of age, I used to walk around in San Antonio, Texas, with a con in front of me, and say, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is pretty sudden, from high in the clouds of the Smith Young Tower in San Antonio, Texas, well, the Smith Young Tower was 31 stores high, and it's still in San Antonio, it's called a transportation tower. I'd steal the tallest building in San Antonio, I used to go around saying that the truth of the matter was that I could never be a broadcaster, black Percy Sutton could never be a broadcaster in San Antonio, Texas, but I always wanted to be a broadcaster. I wanted to influence people's thinking, I wanted to be an orator, I wanted to write, I wanted to broadcast, so inner city was started in my mind at that time, but actually with regard to putting the money together and doing the other things with regard to inner city broadcasting, that occurred in the year 1967, when a man by the name of Novik,

Novik, Harry Novik was a fine man who owned two radio stations in the heart of Harlem, they were called W-L-I-B-A-E-M and W-L-I-B-F-M, and during a course of a riot in 1965, he mentioned to me that I told him that I'd like to own the radio station, they didn't have any money, he said, you know, you've been so helpful to me. My brother and I were both conducting radio programs on the radio station. They had been a riot in 1964, and we stayed on the air, we made an application to Washington, it was the daytime station, W-L-I-B-A-M, W-L-B-F-M was a 24 hour station, but W-L-I-B-F-M was really not operating except to Simon Cass, some of that was W-L-I-B-D, they were never on at night, anything, so we got an application, we made our application to put W-L-I-B on at night, and they granted it, and we went on the air and we talked about not destroying

our community, and we were helpful to ourselves, we were young lawyers out in that community, not so young anymore, really, but lawyers, we were new lawyers, and through the system for Muslims, we were able to keep order, participate, we were contributors to the keeping of order. So he said he would give us an option, give me, purchase an option to buy W-L-I-B-A-M-F-M without my putting up any money, and that man could have sold, by the time we were able to buy W-L-I-B-F-M, which later became W-L-S, the number one radio station in all of America, in 80, 81, and 83, that man could have sold that same radio station for much more money if he wanted to, if he didn't want to keep his word to us. We had nothing in writing, and that's how I got interested in buying, and we started to accumulate the money, we went to 67 lending institutions, but nobody thought we could burn a radio station, but we had a man with us by the name of Hal Jackson, who was a veteran

in radio, and then one day I was driving along Fifth Avenue, and I ran into the man who became president of Chemical Bank, and that man loaned us the money to buy at last, someone loaned us the money, we put up 10% on a dollar, and we were able to buy, we paid 2.3 million dollars for both of the radio stations, and that was our beginning. I also understand you all purchased the answer, Dan News. Before that, I purchased the Amsterdam News with my brother, and three other people, with my brother, and myself, and Florence Jones being the principal owners, and we eventually got the money, and we got WB, by the time WLIB FM had been renamed as WBLS FM, and world's best-looking sound, world's WBLS, world's best-looking sound. So we were able to get it, and we did make some changes, and those changes were apparently

effective, because by 1980 we became the number one radio station in America. We're talking about WBLS, but inner-city broadcasting corporation is one of the largest black-owned communication companies in this country. What are the other companies that make up the I-CV roster? Inner-city broadcasting of Los Angeles, where we have K-U-T-E, and K-G-F-J. K-G-F-J is an AM station, K-U-T is an FM station. In San Francisco, where we have K-B-L-X-F-M, and K-R-E-A-M, and then in Detroit, where we have CHIS radio station there, an FM radio station in Detroit, then in New York, we have two radio stations, W-I-B-N-W-B-L-S. Then we're building a radio station in the place called Miami. It's going to be a Spanish language station, and then we have a urban contemporary station

in San Antonio, Texas that is directed to the journal market, but with an accent towards a Hispanic market there, Latino market, it's called K-S-J-L, and those call that is very important to us because the K is obviously for the region of the country, the S-S-S-F-S-A-M-L, the J-S-R-J-S-N, and the L-S-F-L-Y-M. Those are the first names of my mother and father, Samuel Johnson Sutton and Lilliam Sutton. You're in the process of refurbishing the world right now in Apollo Theater. Why was it such an important commitment to you and inner-city broadcasting to bring such an historic landmark back to life? It was to inner-city broadcasting because we are a black-owned company, and the Apollo is the most significant theater in the country, in the memory of all of us, it developed more stars, it would develop there than any place in the country, black stars, as a matter

of fact, it was a principal place of access for black stars, and for spectators, innovative, creative, dynamic place. And so for inner-city broadcasting, it was important, but it had special affection, an emotional affection. There was a special emotional affection that I had for, because whatever I am, and not much, maybe, it is because of hard work, and when I used to visit the Apollo in 1945, down through the years thereafter, I did so because it was virtually my sole recreation, and I was working from 4 p.m. to midnight as a postal person in the postal office here in New York. Then from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., I became a conductor on the D-Train, working both jobs eight hours a day, 16 hours a day, and then going to graduate school first, and then to law school full time, not part time. So that my recreation after 16-hour day and working on weekends as a waiter, all of this

was rather rigorous work schedule. So you need some recreation. My recreation was to buy a seat for the balcony, the upper balcony, or the first balcony at the Apollo Theater, and to go up there and be there when the jokes were told when Pigg meet Markham was there, when Big May Bell was there, when Duke Ellington was there, when Will Maston Trio, with Little Simon Davies was there. I watched every star that I could remember, Bill's both gang of robins and Lewis Armstrong, Fatswala, all of the people, I got a chance to see. I listened to the jokes, I outrageous jokes, the tap dancing, the Nicholas Brothers, and all of the tap dances that came along there. So that was recreation for me. So it was in the memory of this, the excitement of that that I said to myself and my colleagues, we can make this work, but we can make it work only if we make it, return it as a theater where live stage shows are promoted.

But in addition, it must be a venue for the television, cable television and broadcast television. And that's what it's going to be. We have restored it. It's more than a $15 million investment, we're putting in there, we've put in chandeliers where there were just old light bulbs before, we've taken the walls, we've torn off the side of the walls and we've put in new wall covering, we've taken the brown paint off and scraped it, both ceiling and sides wherever it was, and we've uncovered that beautiful gilded and restored the gold gilding that is there. The late Percy E. Sutton, legendary civil rights attorney and business leader, Sutton died on December 26, 2009, he was 89. If you have questions, comments or suggestions after your future in black America programs, email us at jhansenhansen.org at kut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station

or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Averis, I'm John L. Hansen Jr. For joining us today, please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America CDs, KUT Radio, one university station, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in black America CDs, KUT Radio, one university station, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.