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A tribute to Mary Wilson, co-founder of The Supremes

Mary Wilson poses and smiles for the camera, with one hand on her hip and the other leaning on a glass case in a museum. She is wearing a blue gown.
John L. Hanson Jr.
Wilson was in Austin in 2019, where she celebrated the Lyndon B. Johnson Library's exhibition, "Motown: The Sound of Young America."

On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. speaks with the late Mary Wilson, co-founder of the legendary Supremes. Wilson died on Feb. 8. 2021. She was 76.

With lead vocalist Diana Ross and founding member Florence Ballard — and with Ballard’s replacement Cindy Birdsong — Wilson appeared on all 12 of The Supremes’ No. 1 hits from 1964 to 1969.

Wilson talks about growing up in Detroit, forming The Supremes, having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and what it meant to be a Supreme.

John L. Hanson is the producer and host of the nationally syndicated radio series In Black America. It’s heard on home station KUT at 10 p.m. Tuesdays and 6:30 a.m. Sundays — and weekly on close to 20 stations across the country. The weekly podcast of IBA, the only nationally broadcast Black-oriented public affairs radio program, is one of KUT’s most popular podcasts.
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