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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. GATES: And I gave it to my mother once. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. And when my grandparents came as immigrants, my family was able to assimilate pretty easily because we're white. I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. They came in slave ships. You have to get permission. 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? Biology matters. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. He loved the news. Sergeant Who Arrested Gates Tells His Story : NPR We fought to keep the pipeline of opportunity open, and, despite our ideological differences, we found a way to link arms against every form of bigotry.. 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 we're listening to Terry's interview with Henry Louis Gates. Episode 1409A -- Pictured in this screengrab: Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. During an interview on February 22, 2021 -- Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. or subscribe. So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". And they have a horse-drawn carriage. So I want to read something that you wrote about her. 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. So you found out that your ancestors were, like, 18 miles away from where you lived. 8. And I learned a lot about the medium. And I was shocked by that. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. Gates collaborates with genetic scientists, including Eric Lander and David Altshuler, of the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Harvard professor George Church, progenitor of the Personal Genome Project; and personal genomics companies such as 23andMe and Knome Inc. [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]. And we filmed the whole thing. Finding Your Roots | Season 8 GATES: Right after the Beer Summit, it all went away. 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. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. Thank you for being you. American literary critic, professor and historian (born 1950), Critical studies and reviews of Gates' work. And I loved the news. He notably explored genealogy as host of the series African American Lives (200608), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012 ). It's called the Beer Summit. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. 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.. "[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. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? 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. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. [36], In 1974, Gates learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? Cameo as a digital presentation of a fictional version of himself as, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:56. 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. It was Gates vs. Gates on Martha's Vineyard this week. And I would watch this beautiful, brilliant goddess. Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. And it's for my father. 5. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. They - but you're absolutely right. 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. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of Malcolm Gladwell hears some shocking news in Gates's latest PBS show. People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. 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. In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. GATES: Now, we don't do blood anymore, right? On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. 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). Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. Gates also notes that it is equally difficult to decide who should get such reparations and who should pay them, as slavery was legal under the laws of the colonies and the United States. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. Not all U.S. presidents are missed once they leave the White House. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube And I sat down. Race is a social construction. You know, I try to - doing "Finding Your Roots" is a way to paying homage to my mother and father every year. 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. The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, African American who fought in the Revolutionary War, Alfred I. duPontColumbia University Award, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, The National Institute of Social Sciences, Who's Black and Why: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race. summa cum laude in history from Yale University and his M.A. 3. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people. "Finding Your Roots" has become a phenomenon -- and it all began with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. receiving a piece of angry fan mail. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. Thank you. In July 2009 Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct: After returning from traveling abroad, Gates had forced open the door to his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which precipitated a call to police from a neighbour who believed a robbery might be underway. I mean, they know Donald Trump. All that was on still in 1965 in syndication. In the first series, Gates learned that he has 50% European ancestry[22] and 50% African ancestry. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and professor at Harvard University, the seriess subtitles"The Promise of America, Making America, Becoming American, and Know Thyself"suggest assimilation, a melting pot rather than a tossed salad notion of the United States. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Coproduced, hosted, and written by Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. And deep down, I realized in retrospect that my desire to make films was probably born about that time. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. His name was John Redman. The fruits of the unearthed family treehistorical coherence; redemptive narratives of migration and assimilation; intergenerational social mobilityare unevenly dispersed. GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. 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. "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". - like the Bible says? On October 23, 2006, Gates was appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor at Harvard University. Many of us were troubled. JSTOR1208745. GROSS: Yeah. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. In 1980 Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. You know, no matter how different we appear phenotypically, under the skin we're 99.99 percent the same. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. Black people came here - not willingly, of course. 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. And the reason I wanted to be a writer is that my mother wrote so beautifully and read so beautifully. The minister would call on her. 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. 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. What is race? GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. Is this instance of intraracial slavery an anomaly? Henry Louis Gates Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images After that, everything stopped. And I wanted to be from them. GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Was Johnny Cash's first wife, Vivian, Black? Roseanne Cash learned the 1. At one point, Johnny even told the KKK in a statement that Vivian was white. And it's just crazy. GATES: That's true. I was more of a bookworm. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. 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. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. Director, Hutchins Center, African & African American Research, Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. . Henry Louis Gates reveals celebrities' family history in 'Finding Your 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. 2. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . 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. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. Gates has joined the Sons of the American Revolution. The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. And that is the lesson of "Finding Your Roots. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. In 2020, Gates was honored with the Louis Stokes Community VisionaryAward. And I was in the hospital for six weeks. But mutations exist. (Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr.s Britannica essay on Monuments of Hope.). [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. By Alondra Nelson. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a Black mouth or a white mouth. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. And tears just streamed down my face. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - The National Endowment for the Humanities 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. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. [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. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. 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. And he'd make a couple - a move. Brub, Michael (Spring 1994). Of course not. 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. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. I found the first edition when I was an adult. GATES: Yeah, yeah. GROSS: When you were 14, you had a football injury. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. 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. Whereas prior shows relied heavily on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome (Y-DNA), yielding results that included at most about 2 percent of ones complete genetic inheritance, in Faces techniques are used that probe deeper into more of the genome. If the findings of conventional genealogical research produce fireworks, the results of the DNA analysis generate shock and awe. It's beautiful. 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. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama criticized police action, Michelle Gielan reports. However, in the 60s amid the Civil Rights Movement, Vivian had been the target of attention from white supremacists since they believed she looked Black. And the DNA tests we were doing at that time - when they analyzed my Y DNA, it went to Ireland. So you're saying I should have been an undertaker. Henry Louis - The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). 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. [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. I regret we are out of time. 9. GROSS: Totally stunned. This is FRESH AIR. February 12, 2010. He has an estimated net worth of $1million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. 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. I think you know where I'm heading here. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Gates and daughter vie on the Vineyard - The Boston Globe GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. In 1973, Gates became the first African-American to receive a Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship to study at Cambridge. "Black people were so angry at me. They were buried next to each other. Gates is the host of the TV genealogy series "Finding Your Roots." And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. Gatess own genealogical narrative, unfurled against the backdrop of images of his family gathering in the kitchen or tender interactions with his nonagenarian father, Henry Louis Gates Sr., is also quite moving. Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. GATES: Well, I was on "The View." GATES: I did an episode with Oprah and Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. 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. [32], The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Both conventional and genetic tracing yield unanticipated results in Faces of America. Cambridge police officers were dispatched. And she would stand up and read their obituary, their eulogy. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. So I just wrote an essay that was published by Yale University Press about race. Updates? Copyright 2019 NPR. 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. A Stroke -- in Your Twenties? - CBS News My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. Some critics suggest that adding Black literature will diminish the value of the Western canon, while separatists say that Gates is too accommodating to the dominant white culture in his advocacy of integration of the canon. He was a graduate of Frederick Street High School and in 1998 received an honorary doctorate degree from Seton Hall University. "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!" . 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. But it is clear, in any case, that we fully inhabit a genealogical society"to use the anthropologist Elizabeth Povinellis phrase. Mixing cutting-edge DNA research and old-school genealogical sleuthing, FINDING YOUR ROOTS . You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, That's how much the science of genetics has changed in terms of the retail market since 2009. 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. Finding Your Roots | About Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: "Colored People" And TV was on kind of like the hearth in New England. Since 1995, Gates has been the jury chair for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which honors written works that contribute to society's understanding of racism and the diversity of human culture. GATES: Don't you? 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? It was better to be free than be a slave, but you were free but not free. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. She paid cash for that house in what was largely a white neighborhood. And they fought in the Revolutionary War. Gates and daughter vie on the Vineyard. 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. One wishes that Gates, an inimitable literary scholar well before he became a pathbreaking Renaissance man, might have alluded to another of Edward P. Joness works, The Known World, a historical novel exploring life in an antebellum community in which both blacks and whites hold black slaves, by way of even partial explanation. His early life is described in his memoir that is entitled, Colored People (1994). A passerby called police, reporting a possible break-in after describing to 911 "an individual" forcing the front door open. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. And he, and you, the officer and Joe Biden sat down, had a beer or two. Still, as the sociologist Troy Duster wrote in The Chronicle Review (Deep Roots and Tangled Branches, February 3, 2006) regarding the use of this analysis in the first African American Lives, these tests rel[y] excessively on the idea of 100-percent purity, a condition that could never have existed in human populations. We learn, too, that Yo-Yo Ma is 100 percent Asian, that Streep is 100 percent European, and, in a nod to comedy and to how quickly ancestry can become racial classification, that Colbert is 100 percent white man! What is one to make of an admixture test that reveals no mixture at all? Tune in for all-new episodes as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores fascinating ancestries and family mysteries for an array of . 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. But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." And that is a long time. This is FRESH AIR. [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. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. I told them that I did not want to know if I had any of the sort of - I don't know - the slam-dunk genes for Alzheimer's disease. GROSS: Let's look at your ancestry and see who's really in it. As I have written elsewhere, this new kinship category, DNA cousins, or what Gates calls autosomal cousins, suggests that flexible kinship is being made on the new (or is it the rather old) terrain of biology. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. 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.