#d

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

#chance #day #end #every #every day

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

— Henry Louis Gates

#father #funniest #i #like #look

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

— Henry Louis Gates

#everybody #family #get #goal #their

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

— Henry Louis Gates

#black #coloured #father #grandfather #i

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

#been #black #complicated #does #ennoble

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#exemplified #patriotism #through

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#against #america #anti-semitic #based #best

Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#blacks #forth #low #politicians #poor

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. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#even #generation #greatest #greatest thing #immigrant

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

#below #black #children #classes #day