The new season of his TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now showing on PBS. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. In October 1975, he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. 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 with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 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? Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube 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". It was a horrible, horrible thing. GROSS: Do you know - do you want to know your medical DNA? He introduced the notion ofsignifyinto represent Black literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. 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. I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. GROSS: Huge story. As a Black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon. I regret we are out of time. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. And I wanted to be from them. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. 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. It was just misdiagnosed. Henry Louis Gates reveals celebrities' family history in 'Finding Your Mixing cutting-edge DNA research and old-school genealogical sleuthing, FINDING YOUR ROOTS . But it's just not those two genetic lines. 8. An X-ray showed a bright portion that revealed just how much of her brain tissue was destroyed. And he, and you, the officer and Joe Biden sat down, had a beer or two. Even with the aid of cutting-edge 21st-century genealogydigitized archival records and genetic analysiswe may never know the ins and outs of how Gladwells fifth-great-grandmother came to be a slaveholder. GATES: Yeah, yeah. While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison. And the only reason that I started making the series that became "Finding Your Roots" is because of that obituary and that photograph. [25][26][27] Finding Your Roots resumed in January 2016.[28]. 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. He argued that the material, which the government charged was profane, had important roots in African-American Vernacular English, games, and literary traditions, and should be protected. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. And they would be published in the newspaper. And my grandfather was so white, we called him Casper behind his back. 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. Then he'd come back. 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. Even if you were free and you were black GATES: In most states, you weren't allowed to vote. 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 1995, he received the Golden Plate Award of the. And by in traction, I mean on my back with my foot up with weights. I go, goodbye. And they have a horse-drawn carriage. Corrections? GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. As editor-in-chief of the online magazine the Root, Gates has a background in journalism. On April 19, 1989, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. And they fought in the Revolutionary War. The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. He's also written for Time magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. So I would say, you know, no, I don't think so. James . Coming up, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. [32], The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." And we have a wall of degrees at home. 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. 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. 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. That's how much the science of genetics has changed in terms of the retail market since 2009. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). And when they analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, it went to England. The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. His early life is described in his memoir that is entitled, Colored People (1994). I love you being black. Cambridge is a long way from Piedmont, but Gates traces the journey in his 1994 memoir, Colored People. And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. 1. And I watched reruns of early black films like "Amos 'n' Andy" and "Beulah." of Hutchins Center at @harvard. 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Recipients Announced It was astonishing. Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. The latter, tracing the ancestral history of contemporary figures, was especially popular. GROSS: OK. On your mother's side, you found out that you had three men in the family who were freed slaves - freed before 1776. 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. Sgt. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. When I did Morgan Freeman's family tree, it was obvious through his DNA that he was descended from a white man who was an overseer on a plantation in Mississippi. And you - the last scene is the funeral. He loved the news. GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). So we knew he was Irish. And I hope they are. It comes from slavery. They came in slave ships. I was more of a bookworm. And I gave it to her for birthday. GROSS: And then your slightly more contemporary ancestors not having any rights in the country, you know, or very few rights - not being able to vote, having to live in segregation. "Up until that recent piece, people would have thought of him as someone who took a cautious and nuanced approach to questions like reparations. Does race exist? Terry will be one of the guests whose family history is explored next year in the sixth season of the show. Thank you. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. What is race? 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. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. 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). javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net. 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. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. The two series demonstrated the many strands of ancestry, cultural heritage, and history among African Americans. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. 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.. And they stayed home, and they read. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. I mean, they know Donald Trump. GROSS: Your father died not too long ago - a few years ago. 266. 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. Thank you so much for accepting this award. It's the damnedest thing I ever heard. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. On DNA Testing And Finding His Own Malcolm Gladwell hears some shocking news in Gates's latest PBS show. He earned his B.A. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. You might have prostate cancer that runs in your family. And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. Thank God. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. These American faces, we learn, are the descendants of colonialists, aboriginals, overseers, bondspeople, interned citizens, and religious pilgrims. And I sat down. Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. And the average African-American has less than 1 percent Native American ancestry, but they have 24 percent European ancestry. (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 she burst into tears because she used to read me that book all the time. GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. 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. Time will tell. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school. And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. PDF University of Washington School of Law I only did black people. And I would watch this beautiful, brilliant goddess. After that I would say I was a teacher. That's a long time when you're young. 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. We delineate our individual and collective identities based upon inclusion in and exclusion from groups. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? We cant hold a documentary for a general audience responsible for not presenting a complex metanarrative on the philosophy of genetic science. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. And that night - and then daddy showed my brother and me, Dr. Paul Gates now, chief of dentistry at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital GATES: Well, it's the spirit of my mother. 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. Yeah. Is this instance of intraracial slavery an anomaly? By Henry Louis Gates Jr. So I'm telling this story over and over of my - of rediscovering my own lost roots. Both conventional and genetic tracing yield unanticipated results in Faces of America. We have the great privilege of having Professor Henry Louis Gates, of Harvard University, the Director of the W.B. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? GROSS: OK. All rights reserved. The fifth season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. GROSS: Have you been medically DNA tested? The book tells of Gates's childhood growing up in the 1950s in a close-knit extended family and an equally close-knit small-town community. 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. GATES: Oh, my father and I were the first father and son of any race and the first African-Americans fully sequenced. 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' Daughter: "Now It's An Issue Of Race - YouTube In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. From Blum, he says, he learned a lot about writing and history. [9] Gates accepted the offer by Cornell in 1985 and taught there until 1989. Thank you for being you. GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He has insisted that Black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the Black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism". We started to roll. 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. And when I was a young teenager, early adolescence, my father and I connected through the news. Both would be just as important. And she's the cook for Claudette Colbert. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. It's called the Beer Summit. 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. After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. 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. In some states - like, New York would let them vote sometimes, and then take it away. It was really, like, the photograph of her - of your great-great-aunt Jane Gates. This is FRESH AIR. My great-great-grandfather's now been found. I killed my mama. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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. Rather, he works for greater recognition of Black works and their integration into a larger, pluralistic canon. As we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King today, we're going to listen to an interview Terry recorded with historian Henry Louis Gates. Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. 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. What does Henry Louis Gates, Jr., see as the most important form of resistance against hate? It was Gates vs. Gates on Martha's Vineyard this week. (January 21, 2015), Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Potomac State College of West Virginia University. Because the series is so successful in demonstrating the intersections between world history and personal history, the lack of contextualization here is notable. Transcript: Q&A with Henry Louis Gates Jr. January 16, 2009 Greg Hicks: Everyone welcome, this is a very special moment for us and we really want this to be just as informal as possible. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. 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 GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. 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). And we'd have the chess board set up. 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. Hollywood Life That seems to be one of the programs aspirations. [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. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn. Accuracy and availability may vary. GROSS: I think they're doing it through records and not through, like, secretly getting their blood samples. Jakes and Chris Tucker. 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. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. Now she was born in 1819; died in 1888. And on my desk set a red Webster's dictionary. 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. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992) and elsewhere, Gates argued for the inclusion of African American literature in the Western canon. 4. 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. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. I hope you never come back, you know? 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. GROSS: Is that too personal? Know Thyself, the final episode, which shares its title with the slogan of Knome Inc., focuses mostly on genetic genealogy. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. August 22, 2013, 12:00 a.m. Barack Obama. TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Because you've talked to everybody about their genealogy, I want to talk with you about yours and what you've learned about yourself and the larger meaning of what you've learned about yourself. This kind of research has been especially important for African-Americans whose ancestors had their names and families taken away when they were enslaved. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Root seeking, on the one hand, produces idiosyncratic narratives. That belief is shared by Native groups that similarly objected to the Human Genome Diversity Project, as described in the work of Jenny Reardon and Kimberly TallBear. They - but you're absolutely right. 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 2022, the Boston Public Library honored Gates with its Literary Lights Award. And I learned a lot about the medium. Over . 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. And then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. [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. 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? NPR's Michel Martin speaks with professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. about the forthcoming episode of Finding Your Roots which features actor Joe Manganiello discovering he is of African descent. It's incredible. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama criticized police action, Michelle Gielan reports. President Obama's comments on Gates's arrest. Discomfort is also experienced by the viewer. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. 35 (1): 212227. 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. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. But I also watched TV. And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. 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. And under the skin, we are almost identical genetically. Gates is the host of the TV genealogy series "Finding Your Roots." And the reason I wanted to be a writer is that my mother wrote so beautifully and read so beautifully. They spoke in front of an audience last May when Gates received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. Cameo as a digital presentation of a fictional version of himself as, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:56. GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. OK. When asked by National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded: "I would say I'm a literary critic. And he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784.