You can read this quote by Hoyt W. Fuller, from his essay “Towards a Black Aesthetic” (1968), 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…

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. 71: What percentage of white…

You can read this quote from Fred Shuttlesworth, as quoted in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Why We Can’t Wait (1964), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Shuttlesworth 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…

You can read this lyric from Lord Kitchener’s 1953 song “Black or White” in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Listen to the song 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 him on Twitter and Facebook.

You can read this quote by Dorothy Dandridge, from a 1954 interview with the New York Post, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Dandridge 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 read this quote by Jackie Robinson, from an interview with Time magazine, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about Robinson 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 him…

You can read this quote, from Nat King Cole’s statement about the cancellation of his TV show in 1957, 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…

You can read this quote by Nelson Mandela, from a statement he gave while in prison in 1985, 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. 70: What started the black newspaper…

You can read this quote by Thelonious Monk, from an interview with Down Beat in 1971, 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…