Henry Louis Gates Quotes

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Henry Louis Gates

Profession : Critic

Birth : September 16, 1950

In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.

Henry Louis Gates

Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the United States, to Miami. It's like a doppelgaenger. It's the mirror image. And I have no doubt, that once Cuba becomes democratic, that it will be the favorite tourist destination for Americans.

Henry Louis Gates

If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race.

Henry Louis Gates

I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it's difficult for 'poor people' - poor white people, brown people - to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are.

Henry Louis Gates

I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it black?

Henry Louis Gates

America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history, and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system.

Henry Louis Gates

There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.

Henry Louis Gates

You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa.

Henry Louis Gates

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

I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as 'Tarzan.'

Henry Louis Gates

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

Henry Louis Gates

Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth?

Henry Louis Gates

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

The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case.

Henry Louis Gates

One must learn how to be black in America.

Henry Louis Gates

I didn't feel particularly close to my father.

Henry Louis Gates

My brother and I had a really privileged relationship with my parents... They treated us like adults.

Henry Louis Gates

I think that the implication of King's assassination has not been fully appreciated.

Henry Louis Gates

Dr. King's Nobel Prize had a more powerful transforming effect on him than I think he realized at the time.

Henry Louis Gates

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