What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president, who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that, he is a centrist, just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.
Henry Louis Gates
More from: Henry Louis Gates
DOWNLOAD
You are free to use this picture for any purpose including commercial. A credit linking back to this page is appreciated.
Similar Quotes:
-
Every age has its own poetry in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry. -
A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. -
This is what I wanted. They tell me that London is the best field in history. I wanted to be part of that. Because everyone will be there it will be a wonderful challenge for me. You can see the best runners, how they look, how they run. For me to beat the best is what counts. -
If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization. -
There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come.
More quotes by Henry Louis Gates
- 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.
- Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.
- It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art.
- We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.
- Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that.