Yet genealogy is, at the same time, put to the task of heightening awareness of human relatedness, be it experiential or biological. Malcolm Gladwell hears some shocking news in Gates's latest PBS show. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [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. 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? And I have my mother's certificate from this vocational school where she learned to be a seamstress. I am descended from - on my father's side - from a white man who impregnated a black woman and, on my mother's side, from a white woman who was impregnated by a black man. Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. So you GATES: Because of this white man. More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is an American literary critic and scholar who is known for his pioneering theories of African literatures and African American literature. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an American treasure. And you got this from the 1870 census - (reading) that Jane Gates, age 51, female, mulatto, laundress and nurse, owns real estate valued at $1,400; born in Maryland; cannot read or write. 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. And that is a long time. This ancestor was Vivians maternal great-great grandmother, a Black woman named Sarah Shields, whom Rosanne learned about for the first time ever during an episode of the PBS show Finding Your Rootsthat aired in Feb. 2021. They lived together. The fifth season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. GROSS: And it's a way of outing people as not being who they think they are and not recognizing that we're all descended from so many different people. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a Black mouth or a white mouth. So I'm out there. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Not all U.S. presidents are missed once they leave the White House. - like the Aunt Jemima figure. 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. And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. So you're saying I should have been an undertaker. He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. James . My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. GATES: And, you know, what's even more amazing, it's - one, it was my mother's third great grandfather - my fourth great grandfather. And I gave it to her for birthday. 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. The surprising reveals, coupled with the celebrities raw reactions to the information conveyed by the host, deliver moments of high drama and genuine emotion. GROSS: It has been a great honor to speak with you. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. 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. And I learned a lot about the medium. But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." But I think that you should have to get permission before someone is creeping around in your DNA. 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. And it's for my father. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. But it's just not those two genetic lines. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. And you realize it's Peola, grown up, coming back. I'm here to ask, on behalf of our production staff, if you will be a guest in next season GATES: Of "Finding Your Roots." In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. GATES: Otherwise they wouldn't be in a database. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school. [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. Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. And, although full genome sequencing is becoming more common and affordable, haplotype grouping relies upon the more narrow analysis of mtDNA and Y-DNA. Gat. 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. [34] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. It was better to be free than be a slave, but you were free but not free. And on my desk set a red Webster's dictionary. GROSS: Yeah. So that was a steal. And if you're Ashkenazi Jewish, you might have a higher risk for those kind of things or Tay-Sachs. This is FRESH AIR. American literary critic, professor and historian (born 1950), Critical studies and reviews of Gates' work. 1. People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. 35 (1): 212227. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. Daughter Elizabeth Gates interviews her dad about . In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. )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. Fifty or a hundred years from now, he explains, my hope for the present generation is that a future Du Bois will look back on our time and say that, in this era of fracture, we drew a line. And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. 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? 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. OK. This is FRESH AIR. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. [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]. 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. GROSS: Is that too personal? Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. So let's get back to your great-great-grandmother. 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? That's not the way it was. But we have a disproportionately higher risk of sickle cell. In an article for Newsweek, journalist Lisa Miller reported on the reaction to Gates' article: The enemy of individuality is groupthink, Gates says, and here he holds everyone accountable. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. In 2021, Gates was honored by PEN America with its Audible Literary Service Award. He introduced the notion ofsignifyinto represent Black literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. 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. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. 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. 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. GROSS: Yeah. In some states - like, New York would let them vote sometimes, and then take it away. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? 7. And she was a beautiful woman. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. Now you can get a full sequence for less than $5,000 - some people say $1,000 or $2,000. GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. Or they stayed home, and they drew. Jr. (Design School Visiting Committee 1984-89) in honor of their daughters, Brooke Higgins Bing Williams, Harvard College 1988, and Eden Branford Bing Williams, Harvard . If that date is correct, it would have precedence as the first-known novel written in the United States by an African American. And by in traction, I mean on my back with my foot up with weights. Over . His writing includes pieces in The New York Times that defend rap music and an article in Sports Illustrated that criticizes Black youth culture for glorifying basketball over education. In addition to producing and hosting previous series on the history and genealogy of prominent American figures, since 2012, Gates has been host of the television series Finding Your Roots on PBS. And I loved the news. [3], Gates learned through research that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 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. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. 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. 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. African-Americans all think that they're a descendant from a Native American. We're listening to the interview Terry recorded with Harvard historian, author and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates before an audience at WHYY in Philadelphia last May. And the only reason that I started making the series that became "Finding Your Roots" is because of that obituary and that photograph.

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