#american

What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place. ↗

— Jerry Garcia

#america #american #been #complex #lynch

The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#any #bottom #bottom line #continuously #documented

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

#affinity #african #african american #american #construct

All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to trace the ancestry of Native American writer Louise Erdrich back to 438 A.D. We found that Queen Noor is descended from royalty, and that's before she married King Hussein of Jordan. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#about #america #american #american writer #ancestry

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

#because #claim #closely #everyone #him

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. For my own people, it was important to imagine him as the Great Emancipator, the Moses who led us out of slavery. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#because #claim #closely #everyone #great

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

#african #african american #american #behavior #behavioral

I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#american culture #black #common #culture #dna

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 revolution #ancestors #army #continental #fought

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

— Henry Louis Gates

#american history #been #color #contributions #history