Ed Smith Quotes on Communities (6 Quotes)

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

The Washington black community was able to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. I mean, we had our own newspapers, our own restaurants, our own theaters, our own small shops, our own clubs, our own Masonic lodges.

We didn't 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 didn't have any kind of contact with until you went beyond the boundaries of your community.

A lot of people today look at Booker T. Washington as a Uncle Tom as a sell out to his community. That business tradition that you see celebrated today and BET and any number of successful black enterprises, it starts off with Booker T. Washington.

I think in terms of the specific aspects making Washington different than, say, Atlanta, or even Richmond or many other southern cities is the immediate post-civil war period. The fact that you create Howard University in 1867 just two years after the war ends. No other city that has a black community can claim a Howard.

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.