#mo

I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#civil rights #civil rights movement #i #movement #rights

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

#black #each #freshmen #give #golf

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

If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#dna #family #going #invite #mean

If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. I think it's fascinating. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#dna #family #fascinating #going #i

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

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

#black #followed #get #here #institution

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

The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall. ↗

— Bob Marley

#fall #herb #more #more people #people

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