***

Gates has done much for the African-American community, yet he remains humble about the role he has played. When asked if he considers himself an activist, Gates replies with a chuckle, “I consider myself a little country professor.”

“No, I’m primarily a scholar,” he continues. “The reason I went into this business, the reason I pursued a career as a professor, is that I love to read and write books.

“But inevitably, my work has taken me along certain more, let’s say, activist paths than my colleagues in the English department. Because I have a social concern about the status of black Americans,” he says. “And I know how much I benefited from the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative action, and to see the progress of our people arrested by this class divide, which could very well be permanent, makes me deeply and profoundly sad, and I want to be at least one voice in trying to reverse that pattern.”

—Staff writer Andrew C. Esensten can be reached at esenst@fas.harvard.edu.

in their words

America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans

AUTHOR: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

PUBLISHER: Warner Books

DATE OF PUBLICATION: January 2004

FEATURING: Interviews with Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, Franklin D. Raines, Russell Simmons, Quincy Jones, Maya Angelou, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Alicia Keys, Nia Long, Don Cheadle, John Singleton, Chris Tucker, Bernie Mac, Jesse Jackson

"When I was sixteen, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but selling weed was one of the few options open to me. Today, however, young people are inspired to have higher aspirations because of hip-hop. Young people now have all these people visible who make the choice to be entrepreneurs and inspire them to do the same. It's now a cultural thing in our community." (from America Behind the Color Line)

—Russell Simmons, CEO and producer