Jill: Thanks for talking to me today Mr. Gunnar.

I really enjoyed reading your thesis about the

influence of music during the Civil Rights Movement. My class focused on the power of the
media during that time, but I enjoyed learning about this perspective.
Rolf: I think music was one of the larger influences because it had the ability to cross the color
line. I grew up very close to Chicago but my neighborhood was white. It was upper-middle
class; the only black faces you saw were taking the garbage away or mowing the lawn or maids.
It was totally like that. People had kind of an abstract view of what was going on in the inner
city. They didnt really know or understand, and I think thats why the soul music was so
important because they played a lot of it on the top 40 stations. It had the ability to cross the
color line so to speak. In my mind, it was the primary mode of communication. No one in the
white community was going to read a black newspaper. My grandmother was afraid of black
people. When you only read the newspapers, they just report the crimes. Media tends to
stereotype people and give a biased impression of the world. Music was much more influential
by giving hope to African-Americans and spreading awareness to white Americans.
Jill: I thought that was cool. In class, we just talked about how first black newspapers were
covering the race issue but like you just said, white people werent reading those. But then
when white northern newspapers started covering it, that kind of got more attention. Do you feel
like you still got a lot of your information about the civil rights movement from the news, or did
you get it more from listening to the music or listening to announcements on the radio?
Rolf: WVON was a very unique station. The fact that I was able to become friends with a disc
jockey - were still friends to this day; hes in his 80s and still on the radio - the fact that he
invited me in and everything. So I was getting it basically through the newsroom, which is
where I met Jesse Jackson. I met a lot of the Chicago civil rights community. WVON was
unique because it was a very positive force. The funny thing is, the station didnt have a lot of
power as far as the signal. 1000 watts in the daytime and 250 at night. It wasnt one of the
50,000 watt stations. Herb had a huge audience, even though the station only had 250 watts at
night after dark, but his message was always very positive. He would play a snippet of Dr. King
right before they went to their newscast. The station was owned by the Chess brothers, two
white guys, but they also owned Chess Records. They had very little to do with the operation of
the station; they totally turned it over to the black operations.
Jill: Wow thats cool.
WVON was just totally unique because there wasnt a heavy foreman - the DJs could basically
play what they want within reason. They only have a certain number of tracks available, but of
course Herb was given a little more leeway because he was on at night. The big difference
today is that everything is so angry and it wasnt back then. It shouldve been more angry.
Jill: I was reading through the lyrics and I thought some of them were angry. Were those types
of songs not played on WVON?

Rolf: You had to hear the tone of the song to understand. The only angry one I think that was in
there was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, by Gil Scott-Heron. That was more
addressed to the Black Panther movements and things like that. WVON never played that
record. The records that were getting played were James Browns song with lyrics like, I dont
want nobody to give me nothin, dont open the door, Ill get it myself. A lot of records were
based on self-reliance. Curtis Mayfield sung, How long have you hated your white teacher?
Who told you to love your black preacher? You might want to check some of those lyrics
because back then, I had to actually transcribe them from the records.
Jill: I wonder if I could even find them because you said some of them dont really even exist
anymore because they were never put on a disc or anything.
Rolf: Most of them are still around. Even Sock it to em Soul Brother - that one did come out
eventually on a CD. A lot of them have. Love Among the People, for example, didnt and
some of the others. I gotta see which ones I put in there.
Jill: Theres a lot - theres a big long list.
Rolf: Thats how you get 100 and some pages - you put music lyrics in there.
Jill: It was big, but it was really interesting. And I definitely think it went from a little bit more
light-hearted to more serious, but do you think the optimism of the music helped get both more
African-Americans and white people on board with the cause for civil rights?
Rolf: Absolutely. It was a means of understanding. I dont think people really understood. You
look at a record thats a little bit more on the depressing side, like Woman of the Ghetto, which
wasnt really all that angry. It was, but it was aimed at politicians.
Jill: Yeah thats the one I was actually just thinking of. That one seemed so somber and real
and realistic but sometimes people try to ignore a lot of the harsh realities.
Rolf: That was the only one that was on the depressing side. Is it Because Im Black, by Phil
Johnson, was a little depressing too, but thats more to help people understand whats going on.
The Marlena Shaw record Woman of the Ghetto - that was to get the politicians attention. But
the other ones were more to help others understand who blacks were and why they were the
way they were. It wasnt like it is now. Maybe it might help you if I give you the genesis of that
paper, why I chose that topic.
Jill: I read a little bit from the introduction but if you could expand on how it helped you
personally to learn more about the civil rights movement and the plight of African-Americans,
that would be super interesting.
Rolf: This was my masters thesis. I knew I was going to write about black music in one way or
another. I was really disturbed by the tone and mood set by the rap music that was coming out.

The soul music was positive for the most part. And rap music was so degrading. I was
basically going to write my paper on why rap is crap, more or less, and the harm its doing. And
then I sat there and thought about it for awhile, and I said you know, why make the paper
negative? Soul music was so positive and so powerful that when the rap came out, the
contrast was stark in my mind, and it still is. I think there is a lot more anger because of rap
music. When you should have been angry - I think Dr. King had a lot to do with that - people
were remaining positive. The idea was to move forward, hope, respect - I say it loud, Im black
and Im proud. It was all that. And Say it Loud - Im Black and Im Proud crossed over onto
white radio. And so people got to understand that it was a movement encouraging self-reliance.
It was about opportunity, not so much about equality. Because of that message, coupled with
the positive messages of Dr. King, a lot of white people saw things entirely differently, destroying
all the misconceptions they had. Before, people were genuinely scared of going into the black
communities. When Herb befriended me, he took me into the inner city. He had a club down
there called The Times Square and wed go down there on occasion. He took me to Harlem
High School when he was making one of his appearances. Talk about the only white kid in the
room, but I was never treated better by the students, probably because I was a novelty and it
was an all-black school. I would be more afraid of walking into a black community now than I
was back then.
Jill: That makes sense.
Rolf: Like I said, I think the music had a lot to do with that. I used to go down and see Herb all
the time when I was in high school, junior and senior year when I was able to drive. The only
night that he told me not to come down was the night King was shot. He said, Youd better not
come down tonight. Chicago didnt erupt like the other cities did. I think WVON had a lot to do
with that. So thats the genesis of the paper. I said, why write about something negative when
I can write something positive? I wrote that paper in the 90s and a lot of people had no clue
how positive the messages were.
Jill: I think thats the other thing. When you started listening to it, was it more for the beat or the
lyrics? It may have started with the beat but when white people started listening to this music
too, there was an opportunity to insert pro-social lyrics that would reach white people.
Rolf: The big mover in that was probably Motown. Motown initially stayed away from
controversy. One of the interesting things is that for one of their big hits, they couldnt even put
the picture of the group on the album. When The Marvellettes came out with their album
Please Mr. Postman, they couldnt put a picture of the group on the cover because they were
black so they used a picture of a mailbox. Motown did start moving into more controversy.
They tried to stay away from it but it was the one music style that could really cross over. Top
40 stations were playing Temptations records right out of the box; they werent waiting for them
to become hits - theyd make the hit. The Temptations did have a few controversial songs, like
Message from a Black Man. If you look at the lyrics of that one, its all about perseverance no matter how hard you try, you cant stop us. Its not anger. In the black community, that
garnered hope I would imagine, whereas in the white community, it let them know here we

come. However, that was never a hit single. Motown had the real ability to cross over. Herb
was one of the disc jockeys that used to play white records on WVON - he played Led Zeppelin
and he had a little bit of hippie in him. They played the Rascals and soul music. Felix Cavaliere
was the lead singer of the Rascals and he was very aware of the civil rights movement. He
wrote a song called, People Got a Right to Be Free, and it was a big hit. White recording
artists were starting to come along with the movement as well with some of their songs. I think
a lot of people were getting their information about the civil rights movement from music, more
even than from newspapers. The white community was not reading the Daily Defender; that
was a black newspaper that had been in Chicago since the Civil War and whites werent reading
it. Music was the communication network that could really cross over.
Jill: Its like music integrated before everything else.
Rolf: In the early 60s, there were still problems with playing black music. Stations didnt want to
play Elvis because he sounded too black. But things started to change over time. Alan Freed in
New York is probably the one who changed that; he was a white guy playing a lot of black
records. His story is interesting about the beginning of the movement to use music as a bridge,
and he was on a big station in New York so he got a lot of flack for playing black records.
Jill: Its hard to tell which fueled which: the music or the movement. But after the assassination
of Martin Luther King Jr. and things kind of broke off and slowed down, the music lost some of
its power according to your thesis. Did I interpret that right?
Rolf: No, I think it still stayed there. You probably heard about what happened in Boston the
night King was shot, that James Brown went on and kept calm while throwing his concert.
Thats one of the most famous concerts of the 60s. Motown started to move in other directions.
Marvin Gaye was probably the only Motown radical, and his records really crossed over. I think
the music still had those positive messages; when it really began to change and get negative
was when rap music came along. The first rap record wasnt actually that negative; it was
called The Message by Grandmaster Flash. But even if you listen to that one, the entire
message of the song ends up talking about living right so you dont end up in jail, that kind of
thing. That message was actually positive - that record came out in 76 I believe. But then rap
got progressively negative. Thats when the change started - the late 70s or early 80s.
Jill: Do you think music was still as effective after Kings death? It was difficult to unite the Civil
Rights Movement after Kings death, so do you think music struggled with that as well? Uniting
people?
Rolf: The people who took over for King - Reverend Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
and Operation Breadbox - his message wasnt all that peaceful. He started to get a little angry.
Operation Breadbox was a big thing in Chicago, but Jackson started doing some things that
were kind of nefarious. He would go to merchants and threaten them if they didnt agree to
support the cause. So that kind of thing was going on.

Jill: Did that anger start coming through songs as well?

Rolf: Not until rap. Funny thing is, I think most of those rap songs were bought by white people.
Teenagers thought it was so cool. You hear the excuses for the negative lyrics - thats just
reflecting what the community is like.
Jill: Do you think that if Dr. King wasnt assassinated and had continued to lead the cause, more
issues would have been resolved and the anger in black music and culture today would not be
so apparent?
Rolf: If he had lived his full life out, I think our country would be a lot different. A lot of charlatans
came in after he died. Im not going to put Reverend Jackson in that - Ive met him and talked to
him - but guys like Al Sharp and other guys make money on grievance. King never did this for
the money. Thats the difference. What I think is going on today with some black leaders
anointed by the media, not all, is that they have to be discontent because if they dont, theyre
out of work. They thrive on anger and discontent. Instead of pushing the positive messages
about self-reliance, theyre saying the reason youre angry is because someone has oppressed
you.
Jill : Its like theyre still encouraging people to hold onto the past instead of helping them move
forward from it.
Rolf: But thats not just going on in the black community. The sense of entitlement is going on
everywhere.
Jill: Yeah, thats pretty much my whole generation. Its true. Can you tell me a little bit more
about how a teenager like you was able to meet and spend time with a local civil rights activist
like Herb Kent?
Rolf: The WVON radio tower was in Cicero which was ironic because it was one of the most
racist communities. Black families tried to move in and people would trash their homes and
drive them out. I was interested in working in radio so I had stopped by many studios and they
didnt give me the time of day. But I kept listening to WVON and I heard Herbs voice and
realized that he had the best radio voice. One day on a whim, I went to WVON with a friend.
We knocked on the door, and he invited us right into the studio. I think he liked having some
white kids to mentor. I started going down there 2-3 times a week. After knowing Herb for
awhile, I was never given a dirty look by anybody. Meeting Herb Kent had nothing to do with
civil rights or anything political. He just had the best voice and he let me in the studio - other
stations wouldnt do that. I didnt have a lot of interest in the movement myself. I was always
apprehensive about going in the black community even though I had Herb with me. I got Herb
to speak at my high school and that is really when I started to hit me. Herb was so afraid of
coming to my community. He wanted me to meet him and follow him in. When I realized that
he was just as afraid of going to my community as I was going to his community, thats when it
hit me. And the lyrics of soul music meant so much more to me as I slowly started to realize

that the fear and prejudice was just based on a lack of communication. Whether that
communication comes through the news or through the music; the important part is that we
listen to one another. Thats the only way well be able to completely eradicate racism.
Jill: Well said. Thank you so much for talking to me today Mr. Gunnar. I appreciate your time
and your unique perspective.
Rolf: Thank you Jill.