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GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. One of eight children born to Edward St. Lawrence Gates and Helen Gertrude Redman Gates, he was the youngest of seven sons. She paid cash for that house in what was largely a white neighborhood. It's incredible. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama criticized police action, Michelle Gielan reports. GATES: And we - they only put - remember "The Late Show"? In the show, notable guests discover their family roots based on genealogical research and DNA results. Hollywood Life, Latest Hollywood Celebrity & Entertainment News. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. If that date is correct, it would have precedence as the first-known novel written in the United States by an African American. Armstrong Williams, a person I really admire and like, I ask him, and he said absolutely not. Or even to the slave narrative of Venture Smith, in which blacks are purchased by other blacks for both slavery and freedom. As a literary historian committed to the preservation and study of historical texts, Gates has been integral to the Black Periodical Literature Project, a digital archive of Black newspapers and magazines created with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. The event led to public criticism of the Cambridge police department by U.S. Pres. What percent would be Native American? And she come to - it's the woman who invents box pancake mix - right? This is FRESH AIR. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. 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. In July 1976, Gates was promoted to the post of lecturer in Afro-American Studies, with the understanding that he would be promoted to assistant professor upon completion of his doctoral dissertation. Soyinka persuaded Gates to study literature instead of history; he also taught him much about the culture of the Yoruba, one of the largest Nigerian ethnic groups. OK. 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). Sgt. No one's ever asked me that, but the answer's yes because I studied with a person who has been on your show, Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, when I went to the University of Cambridge. GROSS: Totally stunned. 10. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. From the 1980s Gates edited a number of critical anthologies of African American literature, including Black Literature and Literary Theory (1984), Bearing Witness: Selections from African American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1991), and (with Nellie Y. McKay) The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1997). As a result of the injury, Gates walks with a cane and his right leg is more than 2 inches shorter than his left. And at the time, the airwaves were so segregated, they only put black films on "The Late Late Show." Clarke, Breena, and Susan Tifft, "A 'Race Man' Argues for a Broader Curriculum: Henry Louis Gates Jr. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. African-Americans all think that they're a descendant from a Native American. And I was just overwhelmed with emotion. This is FRESH AIR. Today's most compelling personalities discover the surprising stories in their own family trees. In "Root Worker," a short . 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. 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. As a Black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon. When the physical damage finally healed, his right leg was two inches shorter than his left. Now think about that. The first time we met was when I interviewed him for "The Reflection Effect," an essay I wrote for O, the Oprah Magazine about the power of nostalgia to drive happiness and build resilience after loss. GATES: For which she paid cash. He introduced the notion ofsignifyinto represent Black literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of 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. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. Tune in for all-new episodes as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores fascinating ancestries and family mysteries for an array of . In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. Now you can get a full sequence for less than $5,000 - some people say $1,000 or $2,000. This is called an admixture test. 7. And most DNA companies in the United States will tell you that they have never tested an African-American who is 100 percent from sub-Saharan Africa. I only did black people. 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. Elizabeth had suffered a stroke, her mind irreparably harmed. In front of all these people and all these viewers. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. They lived together. In 1980 Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. A white doctor misdiagnosed the injury as psychosomatic after Gates told him he wanted to become a doctor, Gates wrote in a New York Times article, "About Men: A Giant Step," in 1990. 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. "[30][31], Following a trip to China, Gates returned home to his residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard Square on July 16, 2009, only to find the front door jammed. The latter, tracing the ancestral history of contemporary figures, was especially popular. She is author of the forthcoming Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Politics of Health and Race, and is at work on a book about genetic ancestry tracing and African diaspora culture. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. And he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784. In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. GATES: OK. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. At the age of 14, Gates suffered a hairline fracture of the ball-and-socket joint in his hip while playing touch football. [33], Gates married Sharon Lynn Adams in 1979. You know, and your family was, one of them anyways, was in the Revolutionary War. As soon as the Civil War ended, they became common law husband and wife GATES: Which was illegal in Mississippi. If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." What do you think of that? Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. GATES: Yeah. 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. If the findings of conventional genealogical research produce fireworks, the results of the DNA analysis generate shock and awe. This trip came 25 years after Gates worked at a hospital in Kilimatinde, near Dodoma, Tanzania, when he was a 19-year-old pre-medical student at Yale University. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was born Sept. 16, 1950, in Keyser, W.Va. His father worked at the local paper mill during the day and as a janitor at a telephone company at night. I go, goodbye. And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. They had two geneticists. 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. Biology matters. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. 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. Read about President Obama's comments on Gates's arrest. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. And the geneticists have found the identity finally of Jane Gates's paramour, the man GATES: Yes. When I was a boy, I was closer to my mother than my father. He was 97, as you said. And the only reason that I started making the series that became "Finding Your Roots" is because of that obituary and that photograph. My dad got into a public battle with the KKK and so I knew about that, and it was scary, Rosanne said during the PBS special. You know, no matter how different we appear phenotypically, under the skin we're 99.99 percent the same. 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)? And TV was on kind of like the hearth in New England. In 2022, the Boston Public Library honored Gates with its Literary Lights Award. In 1995, he received the Golden Plate Award of the. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. 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. The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. He's also written for Time magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). He argues, "It can't be real as a subject if you have to look like the subject to be an expert in the subject,"[13] adding, "It's as ridiculous as if someone said I couldn't appreciate Shakespeare because I'm not Anglo-Saxon. As host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Gates tells celebrities about their family history. I regret we are out of time. 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. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. Accuracy and availability may vary. In 2019, Gates received the Anne Izard Storytellers Choice Award, 2019 for "The Annotated African American Folktales," which he edited with Maria Tatar. The program documents a 3,000-mile journey Gates took through Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania, with his then-wife, Sharon Adams, and daughters, Liza and Meggie Gates. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. And I wanted to be from them. And they have a horse-drawn carriage. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. Or they stayed home, and they drew. In 2020, Gates was honored with the Louis Stokes Community VisionaryAward. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. or subscribe. The series is the latest iteration of Gatess innovative, fascinating foray into the nexus of genealogy and genetic ancestry testing that began four years ago with African American Lives (and continued with African American Lives 2 and Oprahs Roots). (Note: Clotel (1853) by William Wells Brown is recognized as the first novel published by an African-American author, but it was both written and published in London.) 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. 2. And at this point, I'd run over to my mother and say, Mama, I'll never pass for white, Mama. We are unable to fully display the content of this page. Thank you. "[7], Gates has argued that a separatist, Afrocentric education perpetuates racist stereotypes. A collection of moments during and after Barack Obama's presidency. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? He's received 50 honorary degrees from such institutions as Harvard University and Williams College. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. 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.