In the late '60's, when Gates applied to Yale, that statement would have been considered somewhat cool. Remember, this would have been only about 4-5 years after the U.S. saw fit to grant equal rights to African American citizens, and many in power were still kicking and screaming about it. And it did get him into Yale.
I have also done some reading on Professor Gates; in fact, I've studied and taught him for years. Henry Louis Gates is one of the foremost scholars in the world, and out of the millions of words he has written, I'm sure there are some that people may find offensive. However, his scholarship has forwarded understanding of the African American experience as much or more than anyone else living. Dismissing his work as showing he has "a chip on his shoulder," is facile.
Can any of us compete with the recognition and honors that his work has earned?
An influential cultural critic, Professor Gates has written for Time magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. He is the editor of several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W.W. Norton, 1996). Professor Gates also produced and hosted two previous series for PBS, 1999s Wonders of the African World and 2004s America Beyond the Color Line.
Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summalaude in History from Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House, in 1973. He became a member of Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at Yale. Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell, and Duke. His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation genius grant (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), Time magazines 25 Most Influential Americans list (1997), a National Humanities Medal (1998), election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1999), the Jefferson Lecture (2002), a Visiting Fellowship at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (2003-2004), and the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the highest honor awarded for accomplishments in public television (2009). He has received 50 honorary degrees, from institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, University of Toronto, Morehouse, and the University of Benin.
http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/henry_louis_gates_jr/index.html
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