history

You can read this lyric from the song “Trenchtown Rock” (1971) by Bob Marley, and additional quotes from Marley, 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…

You can read this quote from an op-ed by Bob Herbert in the New York Times, titled “From Dream to Nightmare” (2004), 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…

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. 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 quote by Ed Bradley in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more quotes by Bradley 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.

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. For many, the grandeur of ancient Egypt is evoked by its…

You can find this quote from the book Writin’ Is Fightin’ (1988), and other quotes by Ishmael Reed, 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: This week we are revisiting the “amazing fact” from Oct. 15, 2012, that kicked off this series and takes us back to the genesis of the African experience in America. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 1: How many Africans were taken to the United States during the entire history of the slave…

You can find this quote from a Nobel lecture given in Oslo, Norway (2001), and others by Kofi Annan, 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…

You can find this quote from the book Fatherhood (1986), and others by Bill Cosby, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Watch Cosby talk about fatherhood 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 these lyrics from the song “Afro Blue” (1959), and others by Oscar Brown Jr., in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the lyric 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…