You can read the full quote from the book Damballah (1981), and others by John Edgar Wideman, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the quote in its full context here.
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Root 100 Nominee Nicholas Ryan Gant Breaks Down the Secret Meaning of His New Single
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.
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