[AreaMan]

A complex man who could have easily followed the well worn path of self destruction like many other musicians.

Also a man that had every right to be bitter and vengeful against the whites of the day yet chose to be better than that.
He was no doormat but he wasn't the stereotypical angry black man.

[Mac from Cleveland]

That’s kind of how all of us should be—not a doormat but not a stereotypical thoughtless hater of any sort.

There are plenty of whites who have every right to be bitter and vengeful against blacks, and choose to be better than that. Plus, some of the whites of Louie’s day got him his first horn and made him rich, while many of his brethren, as he relates in the article, didn’t do right by him.

It’s to the good that he was a complex man—it’s a complex world.