Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry.com and other sites digitizing so many of the records, you can now find things… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black. In Brazil, it's almost as if one drop of white ancestry makes… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
We really invented the genre of tracing family trees and going back as far as we could on the paper trail. When… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it black? — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
I think that the implication of King's assassination has not been fully appreciated. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
I want to be remembered as someone who tried to bring the story of our ancestors to the broadest possible audience. I want to… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
In 1957, when I was in second grade, black children integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. We watched it on TV. All… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
Because Lincoln is so closely identified with what it is to be American, everyone wants to claim him, to rewrite his story to satisfy… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
The act of writing for the slave constituted the act of creating a public, historical self, not only the self of the individual author… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share
