No white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost,… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as 'Tarzan.' — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The most ironic outcome of the black Civil Rights movement has been the creation of a new black middle class which is… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United States in the western hemisphere… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another black guy… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of… — 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
You have a diasporic black world, and the only way to put it back together again is symbolic. It's like Humpty Dumpty.… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
We have to stop making excuses. One of the things that I'm careful to show is the horrendous effects of institutional and… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Our society is driven today by so much ethnic discord. We have Black Lives Matter, which I praise and celebrate. We have… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Everybody wants to have sex - you don't have to have a baby when you're 16. You don't have to do drugs.… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Very few Black people ever embraced back to Africa movements, and very few actually, a tiny number actually went back to Africa.… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Like the amazing story of Anthony Johnson. This man was a slave, then became free, accumulated 250 acres, and even had his… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I think that we need more economic-based solutions to the problems afflicting the Black community, and I think that that's a way… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I think that is what we do by preserving and telling our stories. If you don't tell your stories, other people will… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up. — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less,… — 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
I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time, but… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ice hockey...'… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames.… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Insofar as we, critics of the black tradition, master our craft, we serve both to preserve our own traditions and to shape… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
So, the kind of precious memories about being black for my generation won't exist for my kids' and grandkids' generations unless we… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
In 1957, when I was in second grade, black children integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. We watched it on… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue.… — Henry Louis Gates Copy Share Image
Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black… — 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
