Percy Sutton, the pioneering US civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, died on Saturday at age 89.
Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for New York Governor David Paterson, confirmed Sutton’s death. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment when reached by phone at her New York City home on Saturday before midnight.
The son of a slave, Percy Sutton became a fixture on 125th Street in Harlem after moving to New York City following his service with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. His Harlem law office, founded in 1953, represented Malcolm X and the slain activist’s family for decades.
The consummate politician, Sutton served in the New York State Assembly before taking over as Manhattan borough president in 1966, becoming the highest-ranking black elected official in the state.
Sutton also mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the US Senate and mayor of New York, and served as political mentor for the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s presidential races.
“The godfather,” Jackson once called him.
In a statement released on Saturday night, Paterson called Sutton a mentor and “one of New York’s and this nation’s most influential African-American leaders.”
“Percy was fiercely loyal, compassionate and a truly kind soul,” Paterson said. “He will be missed but his legacy lives on through the next generations of African-Americans he inspired to pursue and fulfill their own dreams and ambitions.”
In 1971, with his brother Oliver, Sutton purchased WLIB-AM, making it the first black-owned radio station in New York City. His Inner City Broadcasting Corp eventually picked up WBLS-FM, which was New York’s top-rated radio station for years, before buying stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and San Antonio.
The Texas purchase marked a homecoming for Sutton, born in San Antonio on Nov. 24, 1920, the youngest of 15 children.
Among Sutton’s other endeavors was his purchase and renovation of the famed Apollo Theater when the Harlem landmark’s demise appeared imminent.
Sutton’s father, Samuel, was born into slavery just before the Civil War. The elder Sutton became principal at a segregated San Antonio high school, and he made education a family priority: All 12 of his surviving children attended college.
When he was 13, Percy Sutton endured a traumatic experience that drove him inexorably into the fight for racial equality. A police officer approached Sutton as the teen handed out NAACP pamphlets.
“N-----, what are you doing out of your neighborhood?” he asked before beating the youth.
When World War II arrived, Sutton’s enlistment attempts were rebuffed by Southern white recruiters. The young man went to New York, where he was accepted and joined the Tuskegee Airmen.
After the war, Sutton earned a law degree in New York while working as a post office clerk and a subway conductor. He served as an Air Force intelligence officer during the Korean War before returning to Harlem in 1953 and establishing his law office with brother Oliver and a third partner, George Covington.
In addition to representing Malcolm X, the Sutton firm handled the cases of more than 200 defendants arrested in the South during the 1963-1964 civil rights marches.
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