MSNBC PoliticsNation host Reverend Al Sharpton said in a statement that he was “shocked and grief stricken by the reported news of the suicide of Don Cornelius, the creator of Soul Train.”
“I have known him since I was 19-years-old and James Brown had me speak on Soul Train,” he said. “He brought soul music and dance to the world in a way that it had never been shown and he was a cultural game changer on a global level. Had it not been for Don Cornelius we would not have ever transcended from the Chitlin circuit to become mainstream cultural trendsetters.”