Henry Louis Gates Jr. Quotes

I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins.

Black History Month is a poignant time for the entire country, but particularly the African American community.

From politics and business to music and food to culture, African-Americans have helped to shape our state's colourful past and its future.

The 22 million or 30 million, whatever the case may be, Afro-Americans in the United States were still Africans.

The African American's relationship to Africa has long been ambivalent, at least since the early nineteenth century, when 3,000 black men crowded into Bishop Richard Allen's African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to protest noisily a plan to recolonize free blacks in Africa.

African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning.

The history of the black man did not begin with slavery.

Afro-American

There is a distinctive African American culture that has roots in Africa and evolved on American soil.

America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms; its humor; its music.

Jimmy Baldwin was not only a writer, an international literary figure: he was a man, spirit, voice - old and black and terrible as that first ancestor.

My own thinking has evolved. You find Africanisms in American speech. You find an African influence on United States culture. There are all kinds of Africanisms in America, as you would expect, if you really thought about it... That whole thing is much broader; the influence is much broader than I first understood.

In 'Bayou Magic,' I write about African goddess-mermaids who accompanied slaves to America.

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

Slaves and the descendants of slaves created world pop culture. Let's keep it real and be very respectful about that.

I grew up in a small town in coastal South Carolina. Where I'm from, the people are known as Gullah people. They're some of the first freed slaves that lived on their own, without being attached to the rest of the U.S.

When I was growing up, 'Ebony Magazine' was a must read in our household. In those pages I found our news, our stories, and my pride.

Blacks have a special history, since they were enslaved and were here as early as the first Americans. I hate to sound like a liberal but these are facts. That makes blacks a special group.

We know nothing about Africa, although our roots are there in terms of our forbearers. But I mean as far as the average Negro today, he knows nothing about Africa. And I think he's got to face the fact that he is an American, his culture is basically American, and one becomes adjusted to this when he realizes what, what he is.

The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt, was that the first black people who came to the United States weren't the 20 who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. All of us had been taught that. Well, guess what? The first African came to Florida in 1513. And the huge shock is we know his name, Juan Garrido, and that he wasn't a slave. He was free! This brother was a conquistador who came with Ponce de Leon. He was looking for the Fountain of Youth just like the white people were.

Computer science is not as old as physics; it lags by a couple of hundred years. However, this does not mean that there is significantly less on the computer scientist's plate than on the physicist's: younger it may be, but it has had a far more intense upbringing!

I mean, we've had Republican majorities in the House and even the Senate for a couple of years. How has that worked out, stopping [Barack] Obama, hmm? Seriously.

United States, your banner wears Two emblems--one of fame; Alas! the other that it bears Reminds us of your shame. Your banner's constellation types White freedom with its stars, But what's the meaning of the stripes? They mean your negroes' scars.

You take a look at the history of African Americans in the US. There's been about thirty years of relative freedom. There was a decade after the Civil War and before north/south compact essentially recriminalized black life. During the Second World War there was a need for free labor so there was a freeing up of the labor force. Blacks benefitted from it.

Three years ago I came to Florida without a nickel in my pocket. Now I've got a nickel in my pocket