OK. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama criticized police action, Michelle Gielan reports. "Finding Your Roots" has become a phenomenon -- and it all began with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. receiving a piece of angry fan mail. 8. Mixing cutting-edge DNA research and old-school genealogical sleuthing, FINDING YOUR ROOTS . [3], Gates learned through research that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. GROSS: Yeah. The show makes use of gene-sequencing techniques that have become widely available since African American Lives first aired, like whole-genome sequencing, which entails the mapping of all six billion base pairs in a persons DNA. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. As we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King today, we're going to listen to an interview Terry recorded with historian Henry Louis Gates. And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. [8] The first African American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Gates sailed on the Queen Elizabeth 2 for England, where he studied English literature at Clare College, Cambridge and earned his Ph.D. degree. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. 2. It's incredible that the mystery to my family tree - I'm looking toward Africa, and it was 18 miles away in Moorefield, W.Va., County Courthouse. Still, as the sociologist Troy Duster wrote in The Chronicle Review (Deep Roots and Tangled Branches, February 3, 2006) regarding the use of this analysis in the first African American Lives, these tests rel[y] excessively on the idea of 100-percent purity, a condition that could never have existed in human populations. We learn, too, that Yo-Yo Ma is 100 percent Asian, that Streep is 100 percent European, and, in a nod to comedy and to how quickly ancestry can become racial classification, that Colbert is 100 percent white man! What is one to make of an admixture test that reveals no mixture at all? I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. On hand again is admixture analysistesting that probes a persons full nuclear DNA for genetic indicators said to be suggestive of ancestry; percentages of African, American Indian, European, or Asian descent are inferred from those informative markers. As Elizabeth Alexander comments in Faces about her own family history, We dont even know the half of it. That profound uncertainty makes it all the more troubling that Gladwell translates the peculiar institution into a personal burden. You know, we used to say tribe, but now that's not politically correct - so the Yoruba ethnic group in Western Nigeria. But then President Obama called you both together. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. GATES: Yeah, I loved books. It was Gates vs. Gates on Martha's Vineyard this week. Other TV credits included the documentary miniseries Wonders of the African World (1999), Black in Latin America (2011), The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013), and Reconstruction: America After the Civil War (2019). This kind of research has been especially important for African-Americans whose ancestors had their names and families taken away when they were enslaved. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out CBS 2.04M subscribers Subscribe 53K views 13 years ago Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama. DNA-derived genealogical information may also collide with other ways of rendering kinship and relation. They had a medical doctor who specializes in sharing this information. "[7], Gates has argued that a separatist, Afrocentric education perpetuates racist stereotypes. The womans suffering is assuaged at long last when she revisits the land and people that indelibly shaped her, including a local herbal healer. His work has rooted African-American literary criticism in the African-American vernacular tradition.[12]. Gates has such an eminent reputation", she said, "and so much gravitas. Thank you. Catch #FindingYourRoots Tuesdays at 8/7c on PBS (check local listings). He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates speaking with Terry Gross in May of last year. GROSS: Let's look at your ancestry and see who's really in it. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. And I loved the news. When the physical damage finally healed, his right leg was two inches shorter than his left. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. My great-great-grandfather's now been found. But we can expect some acknowledgment and interpretation of technologys limits. And you - the last scene is the funeral. And that night - and then daddy showed my brother and me, Dr. Paul Gates now, chief of dentistry at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital GATES: Well, it's the spirit of my mother. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? The new season of his TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now showing on PBS. He earned his B.A. He notably explored genealogy as host of the series African American Lives (200608), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012 ). For example, while haplogroupssets of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are gene-sequence variants that are inherited together and categorized by letter and number (A, L3D, R, U5b, etc. We defended the right of every American to vote. Professor Gates is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard and has produced numerous books and documentaries about African-American history. They were buried next to each other. Reader, a collection of his writings edited by Abby Wolf, was published. [36], In 1974, Gates learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. You know, no matter how different we appear phenotypically, under the skin we're 99.99 percent the same. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. In a February episode of the PBS show, "Finding Your Roots," host and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. presented Rosanne Cash with her DNA results and family genealogy. His mother. In "Root Worker," a short . GROSS: So when you had your DNA done, did you have a wish for a certain area of Africa or a certain group of African people who you wanted to be your ancestors? And I was just overwhelmed with emotion. And she throws herself on the casket. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [34] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. It's beautiful. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. about the forthcoming episode of Finding Your Roots which features actor Joe Manganiello discovering he is of African descent. His early life is described in his memoir that is entitled, Colored People (1994). Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. He wrote his first column (about Little League games) at age 12 for the Piedmont Herald in West Virginia and continued to write for his high school and college newspapers. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com. As a child, Gates said he wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar. And I was in the hospital for six weeks. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. Transcript: Q&A with Henry Louis Gates Jr. January 16, 2009 Greg Hicks: Everyone welcome, this is a very special moment for us and we really want this to be just as informal as possible. GROSS: But it's making me think of how much death figured into your formative thoughts - the death of your grandfather, which led you to see the picture of your great-great-grandmother, everybody's deaths through your mother memorialized in those obituaries. The fifth season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. What is race? GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. So that was a steal. GATES: For which she paid cash. It's a lot of data to process. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. Gates was also involved with various television documentaries that were aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. So where does that come from? That's the way it is. A passerby called police, reporting a possible break-in after describing to 911 "an individual" forcing the front door open. They had two geneticists. He was 97, as you said. You might have breast cancer. Advertisement GATES: Don't you? GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. You get your Y DNA from your father, and that's what makes me a man. GATES: So obviously somebody gave her that money. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. The book tells stories about Gates's parents, his lifelong nickname, Skippy, and his brother, Rocky. 22,158 talking about this. 5. Brooke Williams. I love you. And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. What do you think of that? Henrys research also led him to discover a census from 1870, which revealed that Rosannes great-great grandfather a man named Lafayette Robsinson was mixed-race. Upon learning this, Rosanne recalled the long-running rumors of her mothers background and said, So, it was, at least, a small part true., Related: And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. Terry will be one of the guests whose family history is explored next year in the sixth season of the show. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden eventually extended an invitation to Gates and the Cambridge officer who was involved to share a beer with them at the White House, which they accepted. The two series demonstrated the many strands of ancestry, cultural heritage, and history among African Americans. So I'm out there. That yearning manifests itself in many ways, from anomie to ethnic mutual-aid associations. I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. 1. He looked white. Barack Obama understood that and, I think, certainly helped our nation to heal. . Before the PBS episode, the world only knew that Vivian was reported to be of Sicilian heritage on her dads side, and German/Irish on her mothers side. Does race exist? In 2021, Gates was honored by PEN America with its Audible Literary Service Award. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family. Gates wrote a book about Jay Rockefeller's campaign to be governor of West Virginia. Gates's web series, "Black History in Two Minutes (Or So)", which he executive produces with Robert F. Smith and Dyllan McGee, earned five Webby Awards, including for Best Podcast: Documentary and Best Video Series: Education & Discovery (2020), Best Podcast: Documentary and Best Social Video: Discovery & Education (2021) and Best Social Video: Discovery & Education (2022). He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. In 2022, the Boston Public Library honored Gates with its Literary Lights Award. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. Season 8. And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. It was really, like, the photograph of her - of your great-great-aunt Jane Gates. African-American - I love to joke about this. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? The forms of genealogical tracing that star in Faces function doubly: both splitting and lumping. And I think that we throw terms like that around too loosely. Brub, Michael (Spring 1994). I could've won the Nobel Prize, and somebody would say congratulations. They came in slave ships. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. In the face of migration and movement and so-called nontraditional family forms, both conventional and genetic genealogy allow us to freeze for a moment the flux of the modern human experience. Gates also notes that it is equally difficult to decide who should get such reparations and who should pay them, as slavery was legal under the laws of the colonies and the United States. GROSS: I think they're doing it through records and not through, like, secretly getting their blood samples. So we knew he was Irish. Gates developed the notion of signifyin in Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self (1987) and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). Prosecutors later dropped the charges. GROSS: Do you know - do you want to know your medical DNA? [29] His op-ed begins and ends with the observation that it is very difficult to decide whether or not to give reparations to the descendants of American slaves, whether they should receive compensation for the unpaid labor of their ancestors, and their lack of rights. (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). Daughter Elizabeth Gates interviews her dad about . He rediscovered the earliest African-American novels . The current PBS documentary miniseries Faces of America traces the family histories of 12 prominent people who, over the course of several hours and with the aid of conventional and genetic genealogy, come to fasten their varied tribulations and successes to the arc of ancestry. Now she was born in 1819; died in 1888. In 2009, when I did "Faces Of America," a retail value of full genomic sequencing was $300,000. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. Yet genealogy is, at the same time, put to the task of heightening awareness of human relatedness, be it experiential or biological. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. This is FRESH AIR. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) 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. GATES: No. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a Black mouth or a white mouth. Know Thyself, the final episode, which shares its title with the slogan of Knome Inc., focuses mostly on genetic genealogy. There we go. You might have prostate cancer that runs in your family. Barack Obama. When my daughters were born, I had them tested for sickle cell because - black people are not the only people in the world that have sickle cell. Cambridge police officers were dispatched. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. However, in the 60s amid the Civil Rights Movement, Vivian had been the target of attention from white supremacists since they believed she looked Black. Race is a social construction. But it's just not those two genetic lines. In 2020, Gates earned a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction for his book. Both would be just as important. People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. And I don't know if that ruined your sports career forever, but it affected your leg forever. Joness tale offers some insight into the appeal of genealogy, another effort at reconnection with home and kin, and ballast against the tumult of modern living. But I think that one of the mottos of finding your roots is that there is no such thing as racial purity, that these people who have fantasies, these white supremacists, of this Aryan brotherhood, you know, this Aryan heritage that is pure and unsullied and untainted, that they're living in a dream world. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (born September 16, 1950, Keyser, West Virginia, U.S.), American literary critic and scholar known for his pioneering theories of African and African American literature. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) 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. On April 19, 1989, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. Rosanne Cash became tearful after learning that her mom, Vivian Liberto Cash, had a Black great-great grandmother who was subjected to a life of slavery. GROSS: It has been a great honor to speak with you. Today's most compelling personalities discover the surprising stories in their own family trees. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. 1. And that is a long time. GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. GATES: Otherwise they wouldn't be in a database. African-Americans all think that they're a descendant from a Native American. February 12, 2010. He was a free negro, as we would have said then. In July 2022, Gates announced that he would serve as editor-in-chief of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, a new glossary of language that will contain popular phrases used by historical Black figures and modern-day Black Americans. Over . 9. In 1989, Gates won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for editing the 30 volumes of "The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers". But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." After receiving a doctoral degree in English language and literature in 1979, Gates taught literature and African American studies at Yale University, Cornell University, Duke University, and Harvard University, where he was appointed W.E.B. [5], At the age of 14, Gates was injured playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his right hip, resulting in a slipped capital femoral epiphysis. And then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. And he'd make a couple - a move. And they would be published in the newspaper. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people. GATES: And, you know, what's even more amazing, it's - one, it was my mother's third great grandfather - my fourth great grandfather. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. So I want to read something that you wrote about her. Isn't that a cool thing? The world just isn't like that. Video of the day: Drake and 21 Savage's "Spin Bout U" NYC's Extra Butter and Russ & Daughters Join Forces on 50th-Anniversary PUMA Clyde NYC's Extra Butter and Russ & Daughters Join Forces on 50th-Anniversary PUMA ClydeTwo quintessential Lower East Side outposts celebrate the downtown staple sneaker.HypebeastDylan Kelly Culture: Henry And if you're Ashkenazi Jewish, you might have a higher risk for those kind of things or Tay-Sachs. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. It's called the Beer Summit. Lolita Buckner Inniss, a professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, argued that notwithstanding African involvement as "abductors", it was Western slave-owners, as "captors", who perpetuated the practice even after the import trade was banned. (Rockefeller lost in 1972 but later served two terms as governor.). The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. So you're saying I should have been an undertaker. And at the time, the airwaves were so segregated, they only put black films on "The Late Late Show." And she burst into tears because she used to read me that book all the time. He has insisted that Black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the Black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism". JSTOR1208745. The injury was misdiagnosed by a physician, who told Gates' mother that his problem was 'psychosomatic'. From Blum, he says, he learned a lot about writing and history. And she would stand up and read their obituary, their eulogy. A collection of moments during and after Barack Obama's presidency. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. And I learned a lot about the medium. In the years that followed he earned a reputation as a literary archaeologist by recovering and collecting thousands of lost literary works (short stories, poems, reviews, and notices) by African American authors dating from the early 19th to the mid-20th century. He applied the notion to the interpretation of slave narratives and showed how it informs the works of Phillis Wheatley, Zora Neale Hurston, Frederick Douglass, the early African American writers of periodical fiction, Ralph Ellison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, and Soyinka. In some states - like, New York would let them vote sometimes, and then take it away. In Root Worker, a short story by Edward P. Jones, a chronically ill African-American woman who migrated to Washington, D.C., from North Carolina returns to the South with her husband and daughter, a physician, in search of the cure that has eluded her for decades in the North. And on my desk set a red Webster's dictionary. Because the series is so successful in demonstrating the intersections between world history and personal history, the lack of contextualization here is notable. And there were a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump as a repudiation vote. And a doctor from the Philippines taught me to play chess at West Virginia University Medical Center in Morgantown, W.Va. And he'd come around in rounds. He has an estimated net worth of $1million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of "[13] After his 2003 NEH lecture, Gates published in the same year a book entitled The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, about the early African-American poet. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. A new season of Finding Your Roots premieres January 4, 2022! It's - remember, it's - my father dragged my brother and me upstairs in his parents' home and made us wait why he'd look through half a dozen of his father's scrapbooks, about which we knew nothing - complete mystery, a secret to us - looking for that obituary. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. This is FRESH AIR. And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. Gates and daughter vie on the Vineyard. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. [25][26][27] Finding Your Roots resumed in January 2016.[28]. [18] To build Harvard's visual, documentary, and literary archives of African-American texts, Gates arranged for the purchase of The Image of the Black in Western Art, a collection assembled by Dominique de Mnil in Houston. Time will tell. Other works by Gates included Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties (1994), Colored People: A Memoir (1994), The Future of the Race (1996; with Cornel West), Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (1997), The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: Americas First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers (2003), America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (2004), In Search of Our Roots (2009), and Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (2019). In 1973, Gates became the first African-American to receive a Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship to study at Cambridge. You have to get permission. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and professor at Harvard University, the seriess subtitles"The Promise of America, Making America, Becoming American, and Know Thyself"suggest assimilation, a melting pot rather than a tossed salad notion of the United States. It was just misdiagnosed. And it's just crazy. He argued that the material, which the government charged was profane, had important roots in African-American Vernacular English, games, and literary traditions, and should be protected. I go, goodbye. [10] At Harvard, Gates teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, an endowed chair he was appointed to in 2006, and as a professor of English. Mama - I'm sorry, Mama. And then he'd - and I read quite a lot. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. And I hope they are. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? It's a horrible way to start, in a way. After receiving two fellowships in 1970, he took a leave of absence from Yale to visit Africa, working as an anesthetist in a hospital in Tanzania and then traveling through other African nations. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers. GATES: I did an episode with Oprah and Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. We'll hear more after a short break. Wants W. E. B. DuBois, Wole Soyinka and Phyllis Wheatley on the Nation's Reading Lists, As Well As Western Classics like Milton and Shakespeare". One of eight children born to Edward St. Lawrence Gates and Helen Gertrude Redman Gates, he was the youngest of seven sons. So I would say, you know, no, I don't think so. 6.4K views 13 years ago Elizabeth Gates, the daughter of arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates, takes a few minutes to call CNN from Martha's Vineyard and talk to Don Lemon about the. Gates argued that the pervasiveness and centrality of signifyin in African and African American literature and music means that all such expression is essentially a kind of dialogue with the literature and music of the past. The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Henry Louis Gates Daughters Elizabeth is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke in May 2010. 7. In 2021, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania honored Gates with itsFoundersAward. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. And he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784. Omissions? And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. These American faces, we learn, are the descendants of colonialists, aboriginals, overseers, bondspeople, interned citizens, and religious pilgrims. . GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. And we filmed the whole thing. Since 1995, Gates has been the jury chair for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which honors written works that contribute to society's understanding of racism and the diversity of human culture. 4. At one point, Johnny even told the KKK in a statement that Vivian was white. Would you do it? Tune in for all-new episodes as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores fascinating ancestries and family mysteries for an array of . Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. Even with the aid of cutting-edge 21st-century genealogydigitized archival records and genetic analysiswe may never know the ins and outs of how Gladwells fifth-great-grandmother came to be a slaveholder.
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