Yeah. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. 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). The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. Coming up, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. "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. 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." 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. So everybody who showed up on this continent is from someplace else. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. The confrontation resulted in Gates being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. So what that means is that it's the percent of - if you had a perfect family tree, what percent would be from sub-Saharan Africa? And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. The minister would call on her. And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? doi:10.2307/1208745. GROSS: Have you been medically DNA tested? 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. [19], In 1995, Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). Recently, he has enraged many of his colleagues in the African-American studies fieldespecially those campaigning for government reparations for slaveryby insistently reminding them, as he did in a New York Times op-ed last year, that the folks who captured and sold Blacks into slavery in the first place were also Africans, working for profit. Hollywood Life, Latest Hollywood Celebrity & Entertainment News. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. 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. 1. And the black woman says all she wants is enough money to have a New Orleans-type funeral. They had a medical doctor who specializes in sharing this information. Biology matters. GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. Jakes and Chris Tucker. As Faces of America concludes, the connections among several of the participants are revealed using a technique developed by Altschuler and his colleague Mark Daly that is similar to 23andMes Relative Finder. These DNA cousins share several million of the three billion base pairs, suggesting a common ancestor a few or tens of generations in the past. 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. So obviously rape or, at best, cajoled sexuality was the cause, but there are exceptions. GATES: And then there was "The Late Late Show." And she's the cook for Claudette Colbert. The forms of genealogical tracing that star in Faces function doubly: both splitting and lumping. It's beautiful. 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. Such information forces you to contemplate your own history, he observes. GROSS: Yeah. He notably explored genealogy as host of the series African American Lives (200608), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012 ). In 2020, Gates was honored with the Louis Stokes Community VisionaryAward. Then he'd come back. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. That's a long time when you're young. 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. The injury was misdiagnosed by a physician, who told Gates' mother that his problem was 'psychosomatic'. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. So I want to read something that you wrote about her. In 2006, Gates wrote and produced the PBS documentary "African American Lives," the first documentary series to use genealogy and genetic science to provide an understanding of African-American history. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. That's not the way it was. And GATES: Yeah. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 266. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. I hope you never come back, you know? GATES: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. 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. In 2021, the National World War Two Museum recognized Gates with its American Spirit Award. 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. They flew him in from San Francisco. 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". And I was shocked by that. The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. President Barack Obama, a friend of Gates, said that the Cambridge Police Department had acted "stupidly" in the arrest. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses. summa cum laude in history from Yale University and his M.A. And they stayed home, and they read. Terry. 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 At the time, only Vivians European background had been known, and this discovery in her ancestryresurfaced thanks to a profile on Johnnys first wife in The Washington Poston May 16. In October 1975, he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. GATES: So if you were a Martian and came down to look at my DNA results, you'd think I was a white boy, you know? And I sat down. Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, considered Gates's emphasis on there being "little discussion" of African involvement in the slave trade to be unfounded, stating that "today, virtually every history of slavery and every American history textbook includes this information". GATES: That's true. And we'd have the chess board set up. And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". And that is a long time. I can do it. Gates wrote a book about Jay Rockefeller's campaign to be governor of West Virginia. "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!" . GROSS: But you had family that passed for white. It's a gift - and for my mom. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. Over . In 2020, Gates earned a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction for his book. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. Vivian filed for divorce in 1967, and Johnny went on to marry singer June Carter Cash. Both conventional and genetic tracing yield unanticipated results in Faces of America. So everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the climax when Delilah - is her name - the character. So reading this - that she's a mulatto; she'd been a slave - the first question that comes to my mind - and I don't know if it was the first question that came to yours - was, was she raped by the man who owned her? GROSS: OK, for two weeks. GATES: I'll never - I love you, Mama. GATES: And we - they only put - remember "The Late Show"? And then when we go - when you were buried, she would stand up. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. And you realize it's Peola, grown up, coming back. "[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. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. I'm going to be black. And I was just overwhelmed with emotion. It was really, like, the photograph of her - of your great-great-aunt Jane Gates. 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. 7. After that, everything stopped. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. Joe Biden launched his presidential bid in April with a bold . But then President Obama called you both together. GATES: Otherwise they wouldn't be in a database. I found the first edition when I was an adult. GATES: And because it was PBS, we negotiated a deal with this company Illumina which sequences everybody. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And I watched reruns of early black films like "Amos 'n' Andy" and "Beulah." I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. 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. 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. of Hutchins Center at @harvard. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. That's how much the science of genetics has changed in terms of the retail market since 2009. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. It was astonishing. He has an estimated net worth of $1million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. GATES: But everyone who's in one of those databases has given some kind of permission. And consequently, you are now a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. In 2010, Gates wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that discussed the role played by Africans in the Atlantic slave trade. Armstrong Williams, a person I really admire and like, I ask him, and he said absolutely not. And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. His name was John Redman. 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. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. [36], In 1974, Gates learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Gates and daughter vie on the Vineyard. Ozzy & Sharon Osbournes Grandkids: Meet Their Grandchildren, Click to Subscribe to Get Our Free HollywoodLife Daily Newsletter, Rosanne Cash: 5 Things To Know About Johnnys Daughter Whos Speaking Out About His June Carter Affair, 'Finding Your Roots' Preview: Jeff Goldblum Reveals How His Mom Helped Him Fight A Bully, Ozzy & Sharon Osbournes Grandkids: Meet Their Grandchildren, Beautiful Nature-Inspired Baby Names Used By Celebrity Parents, Did Vanderpump Rules Tom Cheated on Ariana With Raquel? And she was a beautiful woman. In 2021, Gates became the seventh recipient of the, In 2021, Gates received the prestigious Gold Medal from. Testing showed he had ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, Ireland and England. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. In 2021, Gates was honored by PEN America with its Audible Literary Service Award. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates speaking with Terry Gross in May of last year. "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. 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. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. We'd spit in a test tube. GATES: Now, we don't do blood anymore, right? So let's get back to your great-great-grandmother. And it's just crazy. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., called the book "an attempt to size Lincoln up through the eyes of Black Americans who visited the 'people's house' that their people had built and in whose names they were determined to win the fight for freedom and citizenship." I mean, they know Donald Trump. 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). A passerby called police, reporting a possible break-in after describing to 911 "an individual" forcing the front door open. [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. 4. And we filmed the whole thing. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. In some instances, we are left wanting to know much more. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. And when my grandparents came as immigrants, my family was able to assimilate pretty easily because we're white. 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. Now you can get a full sequence for less than $5,000 - some people say $1,000 or $2,000. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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. 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. After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. Gates serves as the chair for the Selection Committee for the Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Fellowship Program that is sponsored by the Fletcher Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Fletcher Asset Management. Catch #FindingYourRoots Tuesdays at 8/7c on PBS (check local listings). 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). After that I would say I was a teacher. Is this instance of intraracial slavery an anomaly? We might think of Faces of America, then, as an allegory of the simultaneous diversity of our experiences and the deep interpenetration of our histories. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. That seems to be one of the programs aspirations. They - but you're absolutely right. Ostensibly one familys illness narrative, the story is also an allegory about how the experience of migrationwhether forced through slavery, pogroms, or economic vulnerability, or motivated by hope for a better futuremay generate a latent or conscious yen for community. And I loved the news. He introduced the notion of signifyin to represent African and African American literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. And she would stand up and read their obituary, their eulogy. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. [23] He had known of some European ancestry, but was surprised to learn the high proportion; he also learned that he was descended from John Redman, a mulatto veteran in New England of the American Revolutionary War. 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. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. 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)? All rights reserved. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. GATES: And then when they did my admixture, I'm 50 percent sub-Saharan African and 50 percent European and virtually no Native American ancestry, which really pisses my family off. It comes from slavery. This kind of research has been especially important for African-Americans whose ancestors had their names and families taken away when they were enslaved. [7] In his major scholarly work, The Signifying Monkey, a 1989 American Book Award winner, Gates expressed what might constitute an African-American cultural aesthetic. GROSS: Do you know - do you want to know your medical DNA? javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net. My mother was a seamstress, as you know. 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". (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). Cambridge is a long way from Piedmont, but Gates traces the journey in his 1994 memoir, Colored People. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. I love you. 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. In 2009, when I did "Faces Of America," a retail value of full genomic sequencing was $300,000. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school. Gates considers himself a literary critic and educator. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." Was this an equal sexual relationship? And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. - like the Bible says? It's called the Beer Summit. GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. Copyright 2019 NPR. But I also watched TV. GATES: Right after the Beer Summit, it all went away. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. "My father was so sad. He looked white. And the average African-American has less than 1 percent Native American ancestry, but they have 24 percent European ancestry. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. In "Root Worker," a short . And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. GROSS: Let's look at your ancestry and see who's really in it. He also learned that one of his African ancestors includes a Yoruba man who was trafficked to America from Ouidah in present-day Republic of Benin. And the title is Race Is A Social Construction, But Mutations Are Real" (ph). We know that BRCA1, BRCA2 - they're genetic. [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. GROSS: OK. I killed my mama. What percent would be from Europe? Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. So you're saying I should have been an undertaker. The new season of his TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now showing on PBS. At Yale University in 1973, he was one of 12 students selected as a Scholar of the House, a program that allows seniors to write a book or compose a symphony or follow a similar passion instead of taking classes. 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. The new season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. Because the series is so successful in demonstrating the intersections between world history and personal history, the lack of contextualization here is notable. And then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. That's the way it is. GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. [4] He also learned that he has 50% European ancestry, including Irish forebears; he was surprised his European ancestry turned out to be so substantial. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. In front of all these people and all these viewers. And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. Yet genealogy is, at the same time, put to the task of heightening awareness of human relatedness, be it experiential or biological. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. Yeah. In the show, notable guests discover their family roots based on genealogical research and DNA results. You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? And I have my mother's certificate from this vocational school where she learned to be a seamstress. Based on admixture testing, Longoria is told that she is 70 percent European, 27 percent Native American, and 3 percent African. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. 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.. 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. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. OK. 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. GATES: So obviously somebody gave her that money. But we have a disproportionately higher risk of sickle cell. . 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. 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. Of course not. 1. And I would watch this beautiful, brilliant goddess. It was just misdiagnosed. The "You. GATES: And think about it. 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. GROSS: So you assume it was not a consensual relationship, but she managed to own her own home five years after being freed from slavery. Even if you were free and you were black GATES: In most states, you weren't allowed to vote. Would you do it? 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