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Portrait of Henry Louis Gates

Henry Louis Gates

169 quotes in 1159 categories

Gates notes that black people in Ethiopia adopted Christianity a thousand years before many European societies. He describes himself as a tech geek who asks how new inventions can be made black. He also points out that the black middle class has grown dramatically since the 1960s, even if many children still face poverty.

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Henry Louis Gates Jr., also called Skip, is an American literary critic, professor, historian and filmmaker who works at Harvard University as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Quick Facts About Henry Louis Gates

Notable works: The Suppression Of The Slave Trade To The United States Of America 1638-1870

About Henry Louis Gates

He also serves as a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Gates has helped bring attention to the earliest African‑American novels and has written many works that argue for their place in the broader Western literary tradition.

Quotes by Henry Louis Gates

I have no plans to slow down.

Henry Louis Gates

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I think literacy is everything.

Henry Louis Gates

Literacy

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I'm a tech geek.

Henry Louis Gates

Geek

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Instill respect for teachers.

Henry Louis Gates

Education

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It's fascinating how life works.

Henry Louis Gates

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I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.

Henry Louis Gates

Civil rights

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There are just so many stories that are buried on family trees.

Henry Louis Gates

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Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique.

Henry Louis Gates

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Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Henry Louis Gates

Art

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Diversity doesn't mean black and white only.

Henry Louis Gates

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The first slave to read and write was the first to run away.

Henry Louis Gates

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One must learn how to be black in America.

Henry Louis Gates

America

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It turns out one of my ancestors fought in the Continental Army, so I was inducted into the Sons of the American…

Henry Louis Gates

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My father was the funniest man I ever met. He made Redd Foxx look like an undertaker.

Henry Louis Gates

Father

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I'm looking forward to the time when we all look like Polynesians.

Henry Louis Gates

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No white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager.

Henry Louis Gates

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Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

Henry Louis Gates

Ancestry

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In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.

Henry Louis Gates

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Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am.

Henry Louis Gates

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I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as 'Tarzan.'

Henry Louis Gates

Africa

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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

Analysis

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A more humane form of capitalism is about the best I think we can get. Which might sound very reformist or conservative,…

Henry Louis Gates

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For me, a garden is peace of mind. It immediately takes my mind off the thing I'm puzzling about in my work…

Henry Louis Gates

Flower

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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

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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

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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

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The thing about living in a village at the foot of a mountain is that the world for you becomes, without thinking…

Henry Louis Gates

Class

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Where do real conversations about citizenship occur? In our schools. Think about the things you learned in first grade. "My Country 'Tis…

Henry Louis Gates

Allegiance

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I try to be sensitive, but the atmosphere I create is very supportive. One overriding premise of the series is that guilt…

Henry Louis Gates

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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

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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

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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

Asian

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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

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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

African american

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Because Lincoln is so closely identified with what it is to be American, everyone wants to claim him, to rewrite his story…

Henry Louis Gates

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The more you learn about yourself and your family tree, your self-esteem goes up. They will learn archival skills, historical analysis and…

Henry Louis Gates

About yourself

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Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world.

Henry Louis Gates

Blackest

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My goal is to get everybody in America to do their family tree.

Henry Louis Gates

America

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Remember, I have a Ph.D. in English literature.

Henry Louis Gates

Books

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I didn't feel particularly close to my father.

Henry Louis Gates

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Henry Louis Gates by topic

People (42) Racism (26) Thinking (25) African american (21) America (18) Stories (16) Slave (16) History (15) Black people (13) Parenting (12) Men (12) World (11) Class (11) Tree (10)