In 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born into a black, middle-class family in Washington, D.C. During Ellington's youth, Washington was the undisputed capital of black America, and boasted the largest black population of any city in the country. Life for black Americans was generally getting tougher both nationally, as legalized segregation spread throughout the South, and in Ellington's native city, where residential segregation increased while job opportunities decreased. But Ellington's parents shielded him from most problems, and helped him build a reservoir of self-esteem from which he would draw all his life.