history

You can read this quote by President Barack Obama, from a 2007 interview in Time magazine, 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…

You can read this quote by Jean-Michel Basquiat in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. See Basquiat’s work and 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…

“I was just reading your column, ‘I’m Creole. Why Do I Have South Asian DNA?’ I, too, have ancestral roots in Andhra Pradesh region of India and South Africa. I identify—and the rest of the world identifies me—as a black male. However, a test I took from DNA Tribes says I also have large concentrations…

You can read this quote by Angela Bassett from an interview with the Guardian (2009) 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…

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…

This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. One of the most imposing sculptural monuments to the great black…

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…