"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."

Character

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on character by Henry Louis Gates resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in character 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 Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

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"In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it."

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

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"Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature."

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