Quotes by Ed Smith

“Duke Ellington doesnt name himself. Hes nicknamed by his friends because of the manner in which he dresses, the manner in which he presents himself. He embodies all of that aristocratic tradition that made Duke Ellington noticed as a member of some kind of aristocratic class.”

“If all the ruminations and ponderances were laid end to end along the equator, they would most likely go around in a really big circle”

“Ellington never graduated from high school, so when you speak about his success as a musician, his success as a businessman, his success as an organizer, the city was his tutor.”

“When you say that you are a race man, it means that you embrace the entire black community regardless of the hue, whether somebody is very light and could pass for possibly white or someone is very dark.”

“One of the aspects of the Post-Civil War period is that it unleashed in the black community this latent talent that had always been there but had not been manifested in so many different areas of activity.”

“The community put such a premium on success. And you had no excuse to blame racism or discrimination as a reason why you couldnt succeed.”

“We were visited by whites, who always found coming into the black community to be interesting. Some even found it exotic. They knew that some of our restaurants were superior to their own. One of the interesting things is that whites discriminated against blacks. Blacks never discriminated against whites, and so they were always welcome.”

“One of the prices that we pay for integration was the disintegration of the black community.”

“We didnt have any Ku Klux Klan in Washington, D.C. There was no White Citizens Council. I mean, there was just this vast separation that you didnt have any kind of contact with until you went beyond the boundaries of your community.”

“Even during my youth, I can recall very few black people living on any kind of public assistance. People were working, doing some kind of job that was useful to the community.”

It seems every year, people make the resolution to exercise and lose weight and get in shape.