[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 32 (Tuesday, February 24, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E340-E341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA QUARTER FEATURING THE LIKENESS OF DUKE 
                               ELLINGTON

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 24, 2009

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise to ask the House to join me in 
commemorating yet another honor for Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington, born 
1899, in the District of Columbia, who has left us musical gifts that 
are so timeless they have proved perpetually modern. The new honor for 
Duke Ellington that we celebrate is his likeness at his piano that 
appears on the new District of Columbia circulating quarter formally 
introduced today and placed in a map with other coins that represent 
our union. Duke Ellington is only the second African American to appear 
on a circulating coin.
  For the residents of the District of Columbia, this honor for Duke 
Ellington is special indeed. His values, his study of music, and his 
musical genius were shaped from the beginning of his life in the Shaw 
community and in the D.C. public schools until, as a grown man, he 
pursued his star-studded musical career and became one of the worlds's 
most celebrated band leaders and composers. D.C. residents themselves 
selected Duke Ellington, and many witnessed him help establish the 
entertainment corridor on U Street as a major venue for African-
American entertainers when the District of Columbia was a segregated 
city that did not permit Black people to attend or to perform elsewhere 
in the nation's capital. Ellington was my personal favorite for the 
D.C. quarter not only because he was a native son, but also because for 
many years, we in the city have been trying to correct the notion that 
D.C. is only a ``government town,'' making it clear that we have been a 
hometown since 1801. The District has become a city with some of the 
best theater, entertainment and sports in the country, and now features 
an annual week-long Duke Ellington Jazz, Festival, fast becoming one of 
the best known in the country. The truth is that Ellington is as 
representative of his home town as George Washington is of official 
Washington. The Duke sends the message that hometown, homegrown 
residents are making and have always made important contributions to 
our country and to the world.
  To celebrate the Duke's coin, we kicked off Duke Ellington Week today 
with a celebration of D.C.'s new quarter at the Smithsonian National 
Museum of American History, where the African American Museum is 
temporarily housed and has mounted the Scurlock Exhibition of 
photographs of Black Washingtonians, including Ellington. The 
celebration featured a presentation of the quarter by U.S. Mint 
Director Edmund Moy, and the placement in the coin map.
  Ellington week activities will continue Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 
THEARC, with a ``Celebration of Black History Month, the Arts, and the 
Duke Ellington Commemorative Quarter,'' featuring Edward and April 
Ellington, Duke Ellington's son and daughter, the Ellington School of 
the Arts School jazz band, and the Washington Ballet, and later on 
Wednesday, a concert, ``Sophisticated Lady: An Evening with Denyce 
Graves,'' at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to raise funds

[[Page E341]]

for the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the famous soprano's alma 
mater.
  During a lifetime of recognition of his unique musical genius, 
Ellington received 13 Grammys over 40 years, the Pied Piper award from 
the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1968, and 
honorary doctoral degrees from 16 institutions. He received the 
nation's highest honors, including the President's Gold Medal in 1966, 
and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, the highest honor a 
civilian can receive in the United States. After his death on May 24, 
1974, Western High School in Washington, D.C. was renamed the Duke 
Ellington High School for the Performing Arts. The school is one of the 
most renowned in the nation for its excellence in all the arts.
  Jazz, America's singular indigenous art form, owes its greatness to a 
handful of men and women, none more so than Duke Ellington, the 
Renaissance man of music--composer, musician, band leader, the full 
package. Today, we add a crowning honor with the city's own circulating 
quarter bearing the Duke's image. Now our native son, a musical genius 
already honored the world over for his artistic achievements, will have 
a lasting image on his nation's currency to remind the world that his 
hometown, the District of Columbia, nurtured the musical genius of 
Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington.

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