and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. Many of us were troubled. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. 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. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. Today's most compelling personalities discover the surprising stories in their own family trees. 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. 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. GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. Elizabeth had suffered a stroke, her mind irreparably harmed. And then it was a property requirement. 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. As a child, Gates said he wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He looked white. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. So I want to read something that you wrote about her. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. So obviously rape or, at best, cajoled sexuality was the cause, but there are exceptions. Jakes and Chris Tucker. Know Thyself, the final episode, which shares its title with the slogan of Knome Inc., focuses mostly on genetic genealogy. So I'm telling this story over and over of my - of rediscovering my own lost roots. GATES: Yeah. [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. And I'm wondering if being laid up from an injury for a while affected your desire to - and your time to immerse yourself in books. OK. In 1989, Gates won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for editing the 30 volumes of "The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers". My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. 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. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. And I hope they are. They flew him in from San Francisco. [11] Additionally, he is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. So I thought that I had a pretty good chance. [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. And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. It was a horrible, horrible thing. [36], In 1974, Gates learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. And I was just overwhelmed with emotion. This program examined the genealogy of 12 North Americans of diverse ancestry: Elizabeth Alexander, Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Louise Erdrich, Malcolm Gladwell, Eva Longoria, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Nichols, Queen Noor of Jordan, Mehmet Oz, Meryl Streep, and Kristi Yamaguchi. His mother. And before I started school - I started school when I was, well, 5, turning 6 - I would get dressed up, and I would go to church with my mom. And on my desk set a red Webster's dictionary. So where does that come from? So you GATES: Because of this white man. GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). Such information forces you to contemplate your own history, he observes. The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. A passerby called police, reporting a possible break-in after describing to 911 "an individual" forcing the front door open. Season 8. A Stroke -- in Your Twenties? - CBS News Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. [3], Gates learned through research that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. What is race? 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. American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) - Instagram So everybody who showed up on this continent is from someplace else. GROSS: OK. 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 Henry Louis - The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard And one of the, you know, wonderful people on "The View" said did I think that Donald Trump is racist. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. 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. That yearning manifests itself in many ways, from anomie to ethnic mutual-aid associations. The recipient of fifty-six honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a . But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. Finding Your Roots | Season 8 GATES: Yeah, yeah. You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. In some states - like, New York would let them vote sometimes, and then take it away. And the average African-American has less than 1 percent Native American ancestry, but they have 24 percent European ancestry. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. Gates's prominence led to his being called as a witness on behalf of the controversial Florida rap group 2 Live Crew in an obscenity case. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. But I think that you should have to get permission before someone is creeping around in your DNA. Thank you so much for accepting this award. 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. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? GROSS: It has been a great honor to speak with you. And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. That shocking news is relayed to Gladwell in an exchange pregnant with anxiety and uneasiness on the part of both men. But then President Obama called you both together. 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 . GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? The book tells stories about Gates's parents, his lifelong nickname, Skippy, and his brother, Rocky. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. And remarkably, she's now able to. But I think that Donald Trump's rhetoric and some of his actions - for instance, after Charlottesville - encourage unfavorable race relations in the United States. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. Elizabeth Gates, the daughter of prominent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke just four months ago. Mama - I'm sorry, Mama. 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. 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? Henry Louis Gates, Sr. (1913 - 2010) - Genealogy - geni family tree You were 9 years old when you found her picture. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. 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. "Signifyin'" refers to the significance of words that is based on context, and is accessible only to those who share the cultural values of a given speech community. 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. In 2019, Gates received the Anne Izard Storytellers Choice Award, 2019 for "The Annotated African American Folktales," which he edited with Maria Tatar. This is FRESH AIR. Sgt. The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. Thank you for being you. 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. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. GROSS: There's some people who are trying to use genealogy to out people who are white supremacists and say, oh, you think you're so pure white, that that's such a big deal? And when my grandparents came as immigrants, my family was able to assimilate pretty easily because we're white. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. 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: 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)? 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. When I became a teenager, my father and I bonded. 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. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. An X-ray showed a bright portion that revealed just how much of her brain tissue was destroyed. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family. It was Gates vs. Gates on Martha's Vineyard this week. 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. And I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. And that is a long time. I killed my mama. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. I love you being black. And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". One of eight children born to Edward St. Lawrence Gates and Helen Gertrude Redman Gates, he was the youngest of seven sons. 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 you - the last scene is the funeral. But we have a disproportionately higher risk of sickle cell. 35 (1): 212227. GATES: But then they did another special test. Also, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. The event led to public criticism of the Cambridge police department by U.S. Pres. Hollywood Life, Latest Hollywood Celebrity & Entertainment News. He introduced the notion ofsignifyinto represent Black literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. 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. GATES: But everyone who's in one of those databases has given some kind of permission. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. GROSS: Yeah. 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. In the show, notable guests discover their family roots based on genealogical research and DNA results. The surprising reveals, coupled with the celebrities raw reactions to the information conveyed by the host, deliver moments of high drama and genuine emotion. Yeah. 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. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. DNA-derived genealogical information may also collide with other ways of rendering kinship and relation. 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. I was more of a bookworm. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. And we'd have the chess board set up. 4. It's a horrible way to start, in a way. If that date is correct, it would have precedence as the first-known novel written in the United States by an African American. 3. And what's the real showstopper for me is the fact that my three sets of my fourth great grandparents lived 18 miles from where I was born. They were buried next to each other. Obama then held a much-publicized meeting with Gates and James Crowley, the officer who had arrested Gates, which became informally known as the beer summit because Obama invited the two for beers in the White House Rose Garden. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates speaking with Terry Gross in May of last year. On October 23, 2006, Gates was appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor at Harvard University. We'll hear more after a short break. It was better to be free than be a slave, but you were free but not free. 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. And he, and you, the officer and Joe Biden sat down, had a beer or two. As editor-in-chief of the online magazine the Root, Gates has a background in journalism. GATES: OK. GATES: And, you know, what's even more amazing, it's - one, it was my mother's third great grandfather - my fourth great grandfather. But I also watched TV. Signifyin is the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative. A collection of moments during and after Barack Obama's presidency. The new season of his TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now showing on PBS. 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). Was Johnny Cash's first wife, Vivian, Black? Roseanne Cash learned the The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song was published in 2021. I mean, they know Donald Trump. Gates Devastated by Arrest, Says Daughter - CBS News 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. In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. We'd spit in a test tube. On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. 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. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. And your father was a tailor, which is why we GATES: And my mother went to Atlantic City. Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. As a result of research he conducted as a MacArthur Fellow, Gates discovered Our Nig, written by Harriet E. Wilson in 1859 and thought to be the first novel written in the United States by an African American. I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. Gates wrote a book about Jay Rockefeller's campaign to be governor of West Virginia. 5. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. 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. I hope you never come back, you know? And we have a wall of degrees at home. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. As a result of the injury, Gates walks with a cane and his right leg is more than 2 inches shorter than his left. He has an estimated net worth of $1million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. The series combines the work of expert researchers in genealogy, history, and historical research in genetics to tell guests about the lives and histories of their ancestors. GATES: So obviously somebody gave her that money. GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. of Hutchins Center at @harvard. GATES: I said, thank God. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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." 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. We started to roll. 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. GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family - The Chronicle of Higher Education They lived together. We delineate our individual and collective identities based upon inclusion in and exclusion from groups. Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. Omissions? And the last thing I did before I went to bed on July 2, 1960, was to look up the word estimable. - like the Aunt Jemima figure. Was this an equal sexual relationship? Episode 1409A -- Pictured in this screengrab: Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. During an interview on February 22, 2021 -- [33], Gates married Sharon Lynn Adams in 1979. If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." At the age of 14, Gates suffered a hairline fracture of the ball-and-socket joint in his hip while playing touch football. That seems to be one of the programs aspirations. And I learned a lot about the medium. His taxi driver attempted to help him gain entrance. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Britannica You said that after - you had been getting death threats and these angry emails and everything. 7. Finding Your Roots | About Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A new season of Finding Your Roots premieres January 4, 2022! Testing showed he had ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, Ireland and England. GATES: For which she paid cash. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. It's called the Beer Summit. GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Louis-Gates-Jr. African American Registry - Biography of Herny Louis Gates, Jr. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. 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. By Alondra Nelson. 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. And I was shocked by that. More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. Coming up, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. GATES: Oh, my father and I were the first father and son of any race and the first African-Americans fully sequenced. (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.) Having grown up in an African-American community, however, he identifies as Black.
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