#id

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

Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult for Americans, particularly African-Americans to understand or sympathize with. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#categories #color #difficult #fascinating #find

Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#designed #did #everything #father #i

That's when it struck me that I can't take my life as long as I can still laugh. ↗

— David Sheff

#unnamed-lady #beauty

It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#avert #between #black #class #inevitable

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

#assassinated #became #being #black #consider

Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in the middle of the 19th century have not even wondered about the merits of the capitalist system. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#about #black #capitalist #center #century

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

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

I think it's very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they're growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual. ↗

— Melinda Gates

#growing up #i #i think #important #individual