Henry Louis Gates African American Quotations

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.

The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.

I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.

I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?