I would like to do a series about sequencing the human genome, and also analyze more human diversity among other ethnic groups – a ‘Faces of America 2.’ Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
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 Read Quote
We can’t all work in the inner city. And, I don’t even think that it is incumbent upon an African-American intellectual to be concerned in their work with problems of race and class. It’s just one of the things, that we here at the DuBois Institute, are concerned about. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
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. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
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. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
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. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
You have to have a canon so the next generation can come along and explode it. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote
The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case. Henry Louis Gates Read Quote