As a teenager growing up in Detroit in the early-mid '60s, we were huge fans/followers of the early Motown scene: Stevie as a child prodigy, Smoky, Martha and the Vs, early Supremes, and on and on, and on. For us, hitting the ol' Grande Ballroom as the 3 or 4 pink faces in the crowd was never a problem, or 'unusual' to us...my kids didn't have that very mixed situation growing up early on, but I 'trained' them on Soul Train, in the '70s/early '80s.
Cornelius was a genius at that 'package', and gave some well deserved exposure to keeping those genres in front of America's viewing audience, imo. RIP...
Cornelius and a young Aretha
2006