I agree. As a 13 year old white boy growing up in a small coastal logging town, I'd never seen a black person in my life. There was tons of racism for reasons to this day I don't know why. We had no interaction with blacks. Now Swedes? That was different. ;-)
Then the Motown era came along and I was madly infatuated with the likes of Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and so on. My toe could not tapping when Sam and Dave, the Temps or Wilson Pickett sang. The music was a bridge.
I had a mad schoolboy crush on Diana Ross.