Berry Gordy, Jr. (born 1929), founded Motown, the fledgling record company of 1959 that grew into the most successful African American enterprise in the United States and was responsible for a new sound that transformed popular music.

Berry Gordy, Jr., was born in 1929 and reared in Detroit. He was not the first businessman in the family; both parents were self-employed, his father as a plastering contractor, his mother as an insurance agent. Gordy dropped out of Northeastern High School in his junior year to pursue a career as a Featherweight boxer. Between 1948 and 1951 he fought 15 Golden Gloves matches, 12 of which he won, but his fighting career was clipped short when he was drafted to serve in the Korean War.

Upon his discharge from the Army in 1953, Berry Gordy returned to Detroit and used his service pay to open the Three-D Record Mart. His love for the jazz of Stan Kenton...