Percy Sutton, the owner of WLIB-AM and WBLS-FM in NYC, died on Saturday at the age of 89, a spokesperson for Gov. David Paterson confirmed.

Sutton was the youngest of 15 children whose father, Samuel, was born into slavery just before the Civil War but later became the principal at a segregated San Antonio high school.

At the age of 13, Sutton endured a traumatic experience that drove him to become a civil rights attorney representing Malcolm X and more than 200 defendants who were arrested in the South during the 1963-1964 civil rights marches.

While handing out NAACP pamphlets he was approached by a white police officer who said to him, “Nigger, what are you doing out of your neighborhood?” before giving the teenager a beat down.

Before becoming a lawyer, Sutton joined the Tuskegee Airmen and after WWII he earned his law degree in NY while working as a post office clerk and a subway conductor.

In 1965 he was elected to the state Legislature office and in 1966 after Constance Baker Motley was pointed federal judge he completed her term as Manhattan borough president.

In 1971 he purchased WLIB-AM with his brother, Oliver making it the first black-owned radio station in NYC and a few years later he purchased WBLS-FM, then stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and San Antonio.

In 1981 he purchased the Apollo Theater for $250,000 and renovated it when the Harlem landmark’s demise appeared imminent.

Sutton is survived by his wife, Leatrice; his son, Pierre and daughter Cheryl.

Percy Sutton, dead at the age of 89