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" America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history, and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system. "

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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, but that's basically where I am. "

Henry Louis Gates

Sound

Think

I Am

" First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager. "

" Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide. "

" The most ironic outcome of the black Civil Rights movement has been the creation of a new black middle class which is increasingly separate from the black underclass. "

" It's fascinating how life works. "

" So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history. "

" If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race. "

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

" There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry.com and other sites digitizing so many of the records, you can now find things in a few minutes that used to take months. "

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

" Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president. "

Henry Louis Gates

Together

Black

" What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president, who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that, he is a centrist, just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life. "

" So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a beautiful brown blend. And finally, I discovered that in each of these societies the people at the bottom are the darkest skinned with the most African features. "

" My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black. "

Henry Louis Gates

Father

I Am

" The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment. "

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

" People who own property feel a sense of ownership in their future and their society. They study, save, work, strive and vote. And people trapped in a culture of tenancy do not. "

" Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world. "

" You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations. "

" My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another black guy in Piedmont, W.Va., and his name was Skip. They called him Big Skip, and I was Little Skip. "

" Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology. "

" Really, the values under which my generation was raised in the '50s were immigrant values even though we weren't immigrants. The greatest thing you could be was a college-educated Negro. "

" I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it's difficult for 'poor people' - poor white people, brown people - to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are. "

" I didn't feel particularly close to my father. "

Henry Louis Gates

Particularly

Feel

" Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the United States, to Miami. It's like a doppelgaenger. It's the mirror image. And I have no doubt, that once Cuba becomes democratic, that it will be the favorite tourist destination for Americans. "

" The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up. "

" When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied. "

" Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large. "

" I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ice hockey...' - and then I used to say 'golf,' but Tiger took over golf! - 'and Picasso and still be as black as the ace of spades.' "

" I have no plans to slow down. "