history
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The Curse on Haiti
According to Pat Robertson, when the Haitian slaves were battling the French for their freedom, they “swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘we will serve you if you will get us free from the French’… so the devil said ‘OK, it’s a deal,’ and they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and…
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The 2000s: The Erasure of Boundaries
What characterizes “The Decade from Hell,” as Time magazine recently called it? Well, terrorism and the fear of random, irrational terrorist attacks; war and rumors of war, most certainly; the consciousness of economic and environmental vulnerability, in a combination experienced to such a degree by no previous generation of our countrymen; the transformation of the…
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'An Accident of Time and Place'
I would like to applaud President Obama for bringing Sergeant Crowley, me and our families together. I would also like to thank the President for welcoming my father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., who for most of his life has been a Republican! My dad turned 96 this past June, and the fact that he worked…
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L'Enfant Terrible of Black Cinema
WATCH VIDEO of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’ recent interview with Spike Lee. I FIRST INTERVIEWED Spike Lee in the spring of 1991 in his office at 40 Acres and a Mule Productions, located in the heart of the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. I was in the process of moving from Duke to Harvard to…
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Conversations with Henry Louis Gates Jr.
A CONVERSATION WITH RUBY DEE: Looking back at 50 years of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ BUSH, THE LINCOLN BEDROOM AND ME: A White House tour from former President Bush; how his presidency compared to Lincoln’s. LOOKING FOR LINCOLN: How “The Great Emancipator” used his political instincts and powerful oratory to co-opt his rivals TOUR OF ECHOES: Recalling the…
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John Hope, the Prince Who Refused the Kingdom
When I was 20, I decided to hitchhike across the African continent, more or less following the line of the equator, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. I packed only one pair of sandals and one pair of jeans to make room for the three hefty books I had decided to read from cover…
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Black America’s First Mortgage Crisis
I can’t quite believe that it has been 50 years since A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway. Like many people, my first encounter with Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play was through the 1961 film, acted by the original Broadway cast. Because I first saw the film during the black power era, my initial fascination…
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Post It! A New Civil Rights Stamp Collection
2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the modern Civil Rights Movement. In 1909, W.E.B. Du Bois and several black colleagues who had created the Niagara Movement in 1905 joined with a small group of white reformers and civic leaders to form the NAACP. Together, they created the foundation for the greatest movement for civil rights…
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Was Lincoln a Racist?
Read the washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion: “WAS LINCOLN A RACIST?” with The Root’s editor in chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. ***** I first encountered Abraham Lincoln in Piedmont, W.Va. When I was growing up, his picture was in nearly every black home I can recall, the only white man, other than Jesus himself, to grace black family walls.…
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A Sacred Effort
“Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.” —Elizabeth Alexander, “Praise Song for…