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" 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. "
Henry Louis Gates
Bridge
Child
Great
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" Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth? "
Henry Louis Gates
Day
War
Think
" So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. "
Henry Louis Gates
Experience
Trees
Tree
" So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history. "
Henry Louis Gates
History
Been
People
" One must learn how to be black in America. "
Henry Louis Gates
Must
Black
America
" Dr. King's Nobel Prize had a more powerful transforming effect on him than I think he realized at the time. "
Henry Louis Gates
Time
Think
Powerful
" It's very lonely being a prominent black intellectual at an institution where you're the only prominent black intellectual. That was the model that was followed in the late 60s when black studies started. You'd get one here and one there and one here, like Johnny Appleseed. "
Henry Louis Gates
Intellectual
Black
Late
" Because Lincoln is so closely identified with what it is to be American, everyone wants to claim him, to rewrite his story to satisfy their own particular needs. "
Henry Louis Gates
Story
American
Everyone
" If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race. "
Henry Louis Gates
Race
Need
Say
" I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American? "
Henry Louis Gates
Me
Race
Rebel
" Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Security
School
" You have to have a canon so the next generation can come along and explode it. "
Henry Louis Gates
Come
Along
You
" One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Suffering
People
" The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case. "
Henry Louis Gates
Right
Working Hard
Poverty
" In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black. In Brazil, it's almost as if one drop of white ancestry makes you white. "
Henry Louis Gates
Drop
Black
America
" 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. "
Henry Louis Gates
Revolution
Community
Black
" It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art. "
Henry Louis Gates
Great
People
Culture
" My goal is to get everybody in America to do their family tree. "
Henry Louis Gates
Goal
Family
Tree
" The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up. "
Henry Louis Gates
You
Black
History
" It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people. "
Henry Louis Gates
People
Surprise
Together
" 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.' "
Henry Louis Gates
Tiger
You
Speech
" Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am. "
Henry Louis Gates
I Am
Father
Everything
" Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you. "
Henry Louis Gates
Does
Suffering
Necessarily
" Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology. "
Henry Louis Gates
Great
Trying
Love
" It turns out one of my ancestors fought in the Continental Army, so I was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution. "
Henry Louis Gates
American
Army
Revolution
" My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent chance of living a long life like him. "
Henry Louis Gates
End
Bridge
Chance
" Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President. "
Henry Louis Gates
Other
American
Growth
" There are just so many stories that are buried on family trees. "
Henry Louis Gates
Family
Trees
Stories
" I didn't feel particularly close to my father. "
Henry Louis Gates
Particularly
Close
Feel
" We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community. "
Henry Louis Gates
Community
City
Attitude
" 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. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Learn
White