"It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art."

Art

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on art by Henry Louis Gates resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in art is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Henry Louis Gates

Henry Louis Gates Jr., popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon.

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the ShortQuote Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Henry Louis Gates

"You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa."

— Henry Louis Gates
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"Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the United States, to Miami. It's like a doppelgaenger. It's the mirror image. And I have no doubt, that once Cuba becomes democratic, that it will be the favorite tourist destination for Americans."

— Henry Louis Gates
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"First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager."

— Henry Louis Gates
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"All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small."

— Henry Louis Gates
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More about Art

"Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call."

— Sylvia Plath
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"The William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh... was the place where Champagne Music was born."

— Lawrence Welk
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"But nevertheless, it's music ultimately that matters in opera, and opera is a piece of music reaching out as a vision in sound reaching out to the world."

— John Eaton
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"Art seduces, but does not exploit."

— Mason Cooley
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