history

  • Quote of the Day: Jesse Jackson on Assimilation

    Read how the quote is referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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.  Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. 

  • Quote of the Day: W.E.B. Du Bois on Writing About Other Cultures

    Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Quote of the Day: Mahalia Jackson on Independence

    Read more quotes from Mahalia Jackson here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Who Was the 1st Black Poet?

    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. (The Root) — Amazing Fact About the…

  • Quote of the Day: Malcolm X on the Search for the 'Negro'

    Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Quote of the Day: Nikki Giovanni on Self-Awareness

    Read more about Nikki Giovanni here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Quote of the Day: Chuck D on Hip-Hop and Race

    Read the quote in its full context here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Quote of the Day: Alice Childress on Racism

    Read more quotes from Alice Childress here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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. 

  • Discovery of 1st Black Female Novelist

    (The Root) — Each February the Swann Auction Galleries in New York City holds an auction of rare artifacts from the black past. It features all sorts of treasures, like slave chains and other instruments of torture, daguerreotypes and sepia-tinged photographs, rare books and lithographs and occasionally handwritten manuscripts, usually letters but sometimes something as…

  • Quote of the Day: Martin Luther King Jr. on Sacrifice

    Read how the quote is referenced here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute 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.  Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.