All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small. Henry Louis Gates More Quotes by Henry Louis Gates More Quotes From Henry Louis Gates The more you learn about yourself and your family tree, your self-esteem goes up. They will learn archival skills, historical analysis and science skills. You learn all this in the most seductive way, and that is through learning about yourself. Who doesn't like talking about themselves? It doesn't seem like science or history, it's just fun. Henry Louis Gates self-esteem fun talking I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American? Henry Louis Gates african-american race lying If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith. Henry Louis Gates democracy america firsts So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. Henry Louis Gates legends doe tree When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied. Henry Louis Gates real believe past A more humane form of capitalism is about the best I think we can get. Which might sound very reformist or conservative, but that's basically where I am. Henry Louis Gates sound might thinking 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 educated generations college All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to trace the ancestry of Native American writer Louise Erdrich back to 438 A.D. We found that Queen Noor is descended from royalty, and that's before she married King Hussein of Jordan. Henry Louis Gates queens kings native-american 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. Henry Louis Gates stories want needs My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another black guy in Piedmont, W.Va., and his name was Skip. They called him Big Skip, and I was Little Skip. Henry Louis Gates guy mom names My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the stereotyped characters that we saw in movies and on television in films such as 'Tarzan' and in programs such as 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.' Henry Louis Gates movie queens character But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of the negative ones is that it creates enormous identity problems for people who have one black ancestor and all white ancestors for example. Henry Louis Gates our-generation white people We can't all work in the inner city. And, I don't even think that it is incumbent upon an African-American intellectual to be concerned in their work with problems of race and class. It's just one of the things, that we here at the DuBois Institute, are concerned about. Henry Louis Gates race class thinking People who own property feel a sense of ownership in their future and their society. They study, save, work, strive and vote. And people trapped in a culture of tenancy do not. Henry Louis Gates study culture people I'm looking forward to the time when we all look like Polynesians. Henry Louis Gates polynesians looking-forward looks Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world. Henry Louis Gates brazil nations world Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. Henry Louis Gates poor politician problem I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United States in the western hemisphere when I was a very little boy, and my father told me that when he was a boy about my age, he wanted to be an Episcopal priest, because he so admired his priest, a black man from someplace called Haiti. Henry Louis Gates birthday boys father So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history. Henry Louis Gates american-history color people If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race. Henry Louis Gates race kings rights
