Richard Steele Remembers Longtime WVON Host Wesley South

Richard Steele Remembers Longtime WVON Host Wesley South

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Services for Wesley South take place tomorrow at the Church of the Good Shepherd on South Prairie Avenue in Chicago. The long-time host of Hotline on WVON died last week at the age of 95. South was one of the first African American graduates of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. He went on to be a pioneer in black talk radio. In the ’60s and ’70s, his show was the platform for hot-button topics in the Black community. Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King were guests on his show. So were Presidents John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. Eight Forty-Eight’s Richard Steele sat down with Lucky Cordell, former General Manager of WVON. Cordell says Wesley was well suited for his job.