You can read this quote by Iman in her book I Am Iman (2001) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Find out about Iman’s efforts to promote diversity in the fashion industry here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He…

You can read this quote from Oprah Winfrey in the September 2001 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. See how The Root chronicles her life in pictures here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard…

You can read this text from Cornelius Eady’s poem “Paradiso” in the book You Don’t Miss Your Water (1995) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He…

Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 64: How were Martin Luther King…

You can read this text by Carrie Mae Weems from her work Not Manet’s Type (1997) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also editor-in-chief of The…

You can read this quote from Iyanla Vanzant in her book Acts of Faith (1993) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief…

You can find this quote, from the character Nana Peazant in Julie Dash’s film Daughters of the Dust, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is further referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He…

You can read this quote by the character Zora in Terry McMillan’s novel Disappearing Acts and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.…

You can read this quote by Marita Golden in Gumbo: An Anthology of African-American Writing (2002), and also in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is…

You can read this quote from a 1997 Essence interview with Geronimo ji-Jaja in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow…