You can read this quote by Dayo Olopade, about Africa’s informal job sectors that are keeping the continent afloat, in this New York Times op-ed. 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…

You can read this quote by The Root contributor Ivory A. Toldson, in a column about how standardized tests are not necessarily the best measurement of college success, 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’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. 72:  Who was the first American-born…

You can read this quote by The Root’s senior staff writer, Jenée Desmond-Harris, in a column explaining why race is an invented political system, 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…

You can read this quote by President Obama, about the negative statistics regarding young black males in education and the criminal-justice system, 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…

You can read this quote by The Root’s associate editor Stephen A. Crockett Jr., about an unofficial announcement regarding a possible new season of The Boondocks, 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…

My grandfather is 92 and owns 688 acres of backwoods Alabama. Supposedly, former slaves cobbled this farm together. On a good summer day, if you are willing to venture deep into the forest and beat back the kudzu, undergrowth and rattlesnakes, you can find the slave graveyard—its crude tombstones serve as precarious markers of sunken…

You can read this quote by Shirley Chisholm, which she used as her 1967 campaign slogan, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Chisholm 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…

You can read this quote from Amilcar Cabral, from his speech “The Weapon of Theory” (1966), 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…

You can read this quote by James Baldwin, from his collection of essays Nobody Knows My Name (1959), 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…