For many years, Henry Louis Gates Jr was handicapped due to a misdiagnosis due to prejudice. In 1964, he was a 14-year-old boy living in a small backwoods town of Appalachia with the dream of playing tennis and becoming a doctor. One day while playing touch football, he unknowingly had retained a hairline fracture playing football with his friends and shortly after, the fracture sheared in to two. He went to the hospital, and just on hearing that henry had knee pain the surgeon diagnosed him with having a torn ligament and put a cast on him. The surgeon then proceeded to speak with Henry about wanting to become a doctor; and after asking various questions and seeing Henry correctly answering them he confirmed his diagnosis and came to his conclusion.
