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. A new season of Finding Your Roots premieres January 4, 2022! His mother. GROSS: Thank you for all of all of the things you've written for your TV shows, for your movies. We'd spit in a test tube. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. GATES: Otherwise they wouldn't be in a database. Graduated from Piedmont High School in 1968, Gates attended Potomac State College of West Virginia University before transferring to Yale University, from which, in 1973, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in history, summa cum laude, and he gained membership in Phi Beta Kappa. 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. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. They came in slave ships. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family - The Chronicle of Higher Education Catch #FindingYourRoots Tuesdays at 8/7c on PBS (check local listings). [3], Gates learned through research that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. You know, we used to say tribe, but now that's not politically correct - so the Yoruba ethnic group in Western Nigeria. We have the great privilege of having Professor Henry Louis Gates, of Harvard University, the Director of the W.B. GROSS: Yeah. Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. Gates is the host of the TV genealogy series "Finding Your Roots." Opinion | The 'Lost Cause' That Built Jim Crow - The New York Times And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". - like the Aunt Jemima figure. And under the skin, we are almost identical genetically. GROSS: So given this kind of really rich mix that you've just described and all the surprises that you've just described, what does race mean to you? Gates says John Morton Blum, a professor in Yale's history department, was his mentor. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. [1] He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels, long forgotten, and has published extensively on appreciating African-American literature as part of the Western canon. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. He has affirmed the value of the Western tradition, but has envisioned a more inclusive canon of diverse works sharing common cultural connections: "Every Black American text must confess to a complex ancestry, one high and low (that is, literary and vernacular) but also one white and black there can be no doubt that white texts inform and influence black texts (and vice versa), so that a thoroughly integrated canon of American literature is not only politically sound, it is intellectually sound as well. Will we reach consilience"William Whewells term for the combining of information from different domains toward the unity of knowledgebetween conventional and genetic genealogy (and, moreover, among the types of genetic analysis at play)? Updates? In front of all these people and all these viewers. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. Later, he acquired and authenticated the manuscript of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, a novel from the same period that scholars believe may have been written as early as 1853. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. And you realize it's Peola, grown up, coming back. 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. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. They had two geneticists. This is FRESH AIR. Even if you were free and you were black GATES: In most states, you weren't allowed to vote. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? You know, no matter how different we appear phenotypically, under the skin we're 99.99 percent the same. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. [34] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. The technical aspects of genetic ancestry tracing are explained, but without sufficient social context, much the way a manual can tell you how to operate a car without explaining automobiles role in modern industry, the development of suburbia, or the emergence of youth culture. I regret we are out of time. And then black people would tell each other - they would say, you know, be sure to watch "The Late Late Show" tonight because "Imitation Of Life," which is my favorite film - 1934, with Claudette Colbert. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. [32], The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. So that was a steal. ". I hope you never come back, you know? 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. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. On DNA Testing And Finding His Own Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. He rediscovered the earliest African-American novels . The latter, tracing the ancestral history of contemporary figures, was especially popular. "We deconstruct ethnic identities to show that when the lights came down, everyone was sleeping with everyone else -- that's the way human history goes!" . Alexanders relation to Colbert or Longorias to Ma underscores a central theme of the series: Underlying the many faces of America is a fundamental genetic unity. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. GATES: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise, "Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Biography, Books, & Facts", "African American Lives The Past Is Another Country 2 4of4 YouTube", "Finding Your Roots: Decoding Our Past Through DNA", "The biggest brother: interview with Henry Louis Gates, black America's foremost intellectual", "Yale Afro-Am Chair Resigns After Remarks of Yale Pres", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. to continue at Harvard", "Henry Louis Gates is Wrong about African Involvement in the Slave Trade", Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, "Henry Louis Gates Jr. announced as editor-in-chief of the new Oxford Dictionary of African American English", "What It Means to Be Black in Latin America", "Ben Affleck's slave-owning ancestor 'censored' from genealogy show", "Ben Affleck Demanded PBS Suppress His Slave-Owning Ancestry", "Citing Ben Affleck's 'Improper Influence,' PBS Suspends 'Finding Your Roots', "PBS' 'Finding Your Roots' returning in January after Ben Affleck controversy", "West Virginia Weslesyan College biography", "Black Studies' New Star: Henry Louis Gates Jr", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. On 'The Black Church' and His Own Bargain with Jesus", "MacArthur Fellos Program: Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Literary Critic | Class of June 1981", "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement", "Mister Jefferson and The Trials of Phillis Wheatley,", "2015 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winners Announced", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. Receives duPont Award for The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross", "Read Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Acceptance Speech for the duPont Award", "Chicago Tribune Announces 2019 Literary and Heartland Award Winners", "Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Named Don M. Randel Award Recipient | News | The Harvard Crimson", "Encarta Africana, the First Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture, Launches Today", Bibliography of Gates's publications and responses to it, African American National Biography Project, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Louis_Gates_Jr.&oldid=1142289654, African-American history of West Virginia, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows, Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Television personalities from West Virginia, African-American television personalities, Members of the American Philosophical Society, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2009, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Gates has received numerous honorary degrees, including a. And deep down, I realized in retrospect that my desire to make films was probably born about that time. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube And tears just streamed down my face. 1. We're all admixed. We started to roll. And I loved the news. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. 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. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. GATES: Yeah, yeah. I was more of a bookworm. So (laughter) given the example that President Obama set in calming down that kind of argument in America over you and this officer, what do you hear now coming from our president? GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. We are unable to fully display the content of this page. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. In 1984, Gates was recruited by Cornell University with an offer of tenure; Gates asked Yale whether the university would match Cornell's offer, but they declined. And I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. And when they analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, it went to England. Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. What does Henry Louis Gates, Jr., see as the most important form of resistance against hate? Gates graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in 1968 and attended a local junior college before enrolling at Yale University, where he received a bachelors degree in history in 1973. Terry spoke to Henry Louis Gates in front of an audience last May when he was in Philadelphia to receive WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. Accuracy and availability may vary. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. So what I did - my father and I agreed, for science, that we'd put our genomes in the public domain so that any scholar or student can study our genome. This is FRESH AIR. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. And, although full genome sequencing is becoming more common and affordable, haplotype grouping relies upon the more narrow analysis of mtDNA and Y-DNA. It's beautiful. On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. GROSS: I saw his picture in the obituary. The show's third season was postponed after it was discovered that actor Ben Affleck had persuaded Gates to omit information about his slave-owning ancestors. 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. And then he'd - and I read quite a lot. But they came from someplace else. Now she was born in 1819; died in 1888. That's the way it is. I go, goodbye. Alondra Nelson is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University, where she also holds an appointment in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. [citation needed] Gates has been criticized by John Henrik Clarke, Molefi Kete Asante, and the controversial Maulana Karenga, each of whom has been questioned by others in academia.[15][16][17]. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. Or they stayed home, and they drew. And I wanted to be from them. And my brother went off to dental school. Of course not. They - but you're absolutely right. 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). Mama - I'm sorry, Mama. In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. He was a graduate of Frederick Street High School and in 1998 received an honorary doctorate degree from Seton Hall University. Yeah. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. While assignment to the haplogroup L3x, for example, indicates an ancestor in what is now Ethiopia at least 50,000 years ago, this interesting detail does not fill in the contours of the family tree. Gates Devastated by Arrest, Says Daughter - CBS News My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. of Hutchins Center at @harvard. GROSS: And then your slightly more contemporary ancestors not having any rights in the country, you know, or very few rights - not being able to vote, having to live in segregation. This is FRESH AIR. The world just isn't like that. Armstrong Williams, a person I really admire and like, I ask him, and he said absolutely not. Then he'd come back. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family. GROSS: I think they're doing it through records and not through, like, secretly getting their blood samples. So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. And we'd have the chess board set up. [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. As of February 2022, Gates, 71, serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and as the Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.. 7. It's incredible. GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. And we're listening to Terry's interview with Henry Louis Gates. The furor over the recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. erupted again Thursday following sharp criticism of the Cambridge Police Department by President Obama. Does race exist? And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. Omissions? It feels heartbreaking, Rosanne Cash admitted through tears after finding out that an ancestor of her mother, Vivian Liberto Cash the first wife of singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, who both received threats from the KKK was enslaved. You get your Y DNA from your father, and that's what makes me a man. )supply information about human population groups dating as far back as 150,000 years, the time horizon of admixture testing is the past 500 years. When I became a teenager, my father and I bonded. 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. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. 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. He notably explored genealogy as host of the series African American Lives (200608), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012 ). 9. And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. President Barack Obama, a friend of Gates, said that the Cambridge Police Department had acted "stupidly" in the arrest. 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. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge - Boston Magazine 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. In the second season of the program, Gates learned that he is part of a genetic subgroup that may be descended from or related to the fourth-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. For $50,000, they sequenced my father, me and then 12 of the guests who were in "Faces Of America" - not a full genome but a dense genotyping. Corrections? Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. His name was John Redman. It doesn't exist. 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. But on the other hand, Terry, there were a lot of people who never forgave the country for electing a black man to the White House. It's a horrible way to start, in a way. GATES: But then they did another special test. 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. By Alondra Nelson. Signifyin is the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative. You said that after - you had been getting death threats and these angry emails and everything. It was a horrible, horrible thing. What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? | The US Sun [19], In 1995, Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). And that is the strongest argument for brotherhood, sisterhood and the unity of the human species. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. And they stayed home, and they read. GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. GROSS: Is that too personal? And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube I'm going to be black. doi:10.2307/1208745. Faces expands on those outings in topic and technique, branching out from the genealogies of prominent blacks to those of a multiracial, multiethnic group of notables, including the actors Eva Longoria and Meryl Streep, the writers Louise Erdrich and Malcolm Gladwell, the musician Yo-Yo Ma, the poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, the comedian Stephen Colbert, and Gates himself. 5. His early life is described in his memoir that is entitled, Colored People (1994). He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. Gates was the host and co-producer of African American Lives (2006) and African American Lives 2 (2008) in which the lineage of more than a dozen notable African Americans was traced using genealogical and historical resources, as well as genealogical DNA testing. Author Herb Boyd, who teaches African and African-American history at the College of New Rochelle and City College, CUNY, argued that despite the complicity of African monarchs in the Atlantic slave trade, the United States "was the greatest beneficiary, and thus should be the main compensator".