Race is a social construction. This is FRESH AIR. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. (SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY"). He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. As editor-in-chief of the online magazine the Root, Gates has a background in journalism. In the first series, Gates learned that he has 50% European ancestry[22] and 50% African ancestry. Now think about that. 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. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 7. Family tree of Henry Louis GATES - Geneastar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? From Blum, he says, he learned a lot about writing and history. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. | Cambridge MA - Facebook And I don't think that he understands how much power that - to heal, to bind that the Oval Office metaphorically has. Isn't that a cool thing? GROSS: OK, for two weeks. GROSS: And it made me think about - because I was just reading this - it made me think about how a president can set the tone for the country on so many things, including, you know, racial issues, immigration. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. A passerby called police, reporting a possible break-in after describing to 911 "an individual" forcing the front door open. In front of all these people and all these viewers. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. 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.. GATES: That's true. It's - remember, it's - my father dragged my brother and me upstairs in his parents' home and made us wait why he'd look through half a dozen of his father's scrapbooks, about which we knew nothing - complete mystery, a secret to us - looking for that obituary. 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. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. 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. [29] His op-ed begins and ends with the observation that it is very difficult to decide whether or not to give reparations to the descendants of American slaves, whether they should receive compensation for the unpaid labor of their ancestors, and their lack of rights. And tears just streamed down my face. "[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. 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. GROSS: Totally stunned. He loved the news. I found the first edition when I was an adult. Sunday Notes - uristocrat.com On October 23, 2006, Gates was appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor at Harvard University. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? He introduced the notion ofsignifyinto represent Black literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. He's received 50 honorary degrees from such institutions as Harvard University and Williams College. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [1] He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels, long forgotten, and has published extensively on appreciating African-American literature as part of the Western canon. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. )supply information about human population groups dating as far back as 150,000 years, the time horizon of admixture testing is the past 500 years. 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 was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. 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). 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. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell 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. Tune in for all-new episodes as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores fascinating ancestries and family mysteries for an array of . 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. GATES: But everyone who's in one of those databases has given some kind of permission. (Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr.s Britannica essay on Monuments of Hope.). 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. So everybody who showed up on this continent is from someplace else. In 2010, Gates wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that discussed the role played by Africans in the Atlantic slave trade. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Even if you were free and you were black GATES: In most states, you weren't allowed to vote. So everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the climax when Delilah - is her name - the character. "Finding Your Roots" has become a phenomenon -- and it all began with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. receiving a piece of angry fan mail. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. In "Root Worker," a short . It doesn't exist. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. 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 by in traction, I mean on my back with my foot up with weights. In October 1975, he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. 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. It's a horrible way to start, in a way. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. And she was a beautiful woman. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. In 2020, Gates earned a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction for his book. And consequently, you are now a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. 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? 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 we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. It's the damnedest thing I ever heard. [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. He wrote his first column (about Little League games) at age 12 for the Piedmont Herald in West Virginia and continued to write for his high school and college newspapers. He notably explored genealogy as host of the series African American Lives (200608), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012 ). And another person to interpret my genetic data because it's 6 billion base pairs, right? GROSS: Let's look at your ancestry and see who's really in it. After an evening at a bachelorette party, she woke up with what she thought was a hangover. 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. What is race? 9. This is FRESH AIR. 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. 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 . There we go. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). GATES: I said, thank God. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. 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.. The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Gates's critically acclaimed six-part PBS documentary series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, traced 500 years of African-American history to the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. Henry Louis Gates Daughters Elizabeth is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke in May 2010. [11] Additionally, he is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Elizabeth Gates, the daughter of prominent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke just four months ago. Season 8. After that I would say I was a teacher. 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. And I was exhilarated. Brooke Williams. 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. PDF University of Washington School of Law Was Johnny Cash's first wife, Vivian, Black? Roseanne Cash learned the Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. GROSS: Do you know - do you want to know your medical DNA? The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. They flew him in from San Francisco. Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. 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: 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? Yet genealogy is, at the same time, put to the task of heightening awareness of human relatedness, be it experiential or biological. Because the series is so successful in demonstrating the intersections between world history and personal history, the lack of contextualization here is notable. And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. He earned his B.A. Signifyin is the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? If that date is correct, it would have precedence as the first-known novel written in the United States by an African American. When I was a boy, I was closer to my mother than my father. One of eight children born to Edward St. Lawrence Gates and Helen Gertrude Redman Gates, he was the youngest of seven sons. By Alondra Nelson. In the early 1980s Gates rediscovered the earliest novel by an African American, Harriet E. Wilsons Our Nig (1859), by proving that the work was in fact written by an African American woman and not, as had been widely assumed, by a white man from the North. And they have a horse-drawn carriage. And I watched reruns of early black films like "Amos 'n' Andy" and "Beulah." [9] Gates accepted the offer by Cornell in 1985 and taught there until 1989. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. 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? You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, His name was John Redman. You know, I try to - doing "Finding Your Roots" is a way to paying homage to my mother and father every year. 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 she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. Henry Louis Gates, Sr. (1913 - 2010) - Genealogy - geni family tree (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.) In 2021, Gates became the seventh recipient of the, In 2021, Gates received the prestigious Gold Medal from. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. ". In 1989, Gates won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for editing the 30 volumes of "The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers". [32], The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). But mutations exist. Gates developed the notion of signifyin in Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self (1987) and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). At the age of 14, Gates suffered a hairline fracture of the ball-and-socket joint in his hip while playing touch football. 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. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. I think you know where I'm heading here. His mother cleaned houses. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: "Colored People" In 2021, the National World War Two Museum recognized Gates with its American Spirit Award. GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. And the DNA tests we were doing at that time - when they analyzed my Y DNA, it went to Ireland. 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. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. I go, goodbye. Rosanne Cash became tearful after learning that her mom, Vivian Liberto Cash, had a Black great-great grandmother who was subjected to a life of slavery. In 2021, Gates was named a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and elected to the Johnsonsians (Society). They came in slave ships. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? We'd spit in a test tube. While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". And then it was a property requirement. And the only reason that I started making the series that became "Finding Your Roots" is because of that obituary and that photograph. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. ", The Letters page of The New York Times of April 25, 2010, featured criticism and examination of Gates's views in response to his op-ed. And the title is Race Is A Social Construction, But Mutations Are Real" (ph). Daughter Elizabeth Gates interviews her dad about . But we can expect some acknowledgment and interpretation of technologys limits. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. 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. In 2012, The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. And my brother went off to dental school. Or they stayed home, and they drew. GATES: Yeah, I loved books. And TV was on kind of like the hearth in New England. A white doctor misdiagnosed the injury as psychosomatic after Gates told him he wanted to become a doctor, Gates wrote in a New York Times article, "About Men: A Giant Step," in 1990. 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. 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. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. [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. What percent would be Native American? And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. And we filmed the whole thing. 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. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. And we have a wall of degrees at home. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. 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. 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 GATES: Yeah. But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. So (laughter) given the example that President Obama set in calming down that kind of argument in America over you and this officer, what do you hear now coming from our president? He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. And she would stand up and read their obituary, their eulogy. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Britannica 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. He received the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the highest honor in the field of public television. And that is the lesson of "Finding Your Roots. GROSS: And it's a way of outing people as not being who they think they are and not recognizing that we're all descended from so many different people. As a child, Gates said he wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar. Rather, he works for greater recognition of Black works and their integration into a larger, pluralistic canon. They were buried next to each other. Know Thyself, the final episode, which shares its title with the slogan of Knome Inc., focuses mostly on genetic genealogy. javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net. Omissions? Catch #FindingYourRoots Tuesdays at 8/7c on PBS (check local listings). Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. After that, everything stopped. And your father was a tailor, which is why we GATES: And my mother went to Atlantic City. doi:10.2307/1208745. And she come to - it's the woman who invents box pancake mix - right? GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. 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. In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. 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. And then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. And I learned a lot about the medium. 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 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. In Root Worker, a short story by Edward P. Jones, a chronically ill African-American woman who migrated to Washington, D.C., from North Carolina returns to the South with her husband and daughter, a physician, in search of the cure that has eluded her for decades in the North. Gates' Daughter Speaks Out - YouTube The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. [25][26][27] Finding Your Roots resumed in January 2016.[28]. We're all admixed. But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." And I think that that's sad. Gates currently serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. It was just misdiagnosed. As a result of the injury, Gates walks with a cane and his right leg is more than 2 inches shorter than his left. 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. Even the Native Americans came from someplace else about 16,000 years ago. I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." But I think that one of the mottos of finding your roots is that there is no such thing as racial purity, that these people who have fantasies, these white supremacists, of this Aryan brotherhood, you know, this Aryan heritage that is pure and unsullied and untainted, that they're living in a dream world. GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? GROSS: Yeah. Is this instance of intraracial slavery an anomaly? So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". The minister would call on her. A new season of Finding Your Roots premieres January 4, 2022! And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. I'm going to be black. Updates? More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. In addition to Rosanne, Vivian and Johnny welcomed three other daughters: Cindy, Kathy and Tara. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - The National Endowment for the Humanities So where does that come from? So I'm out there. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. 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. 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. 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. GATES: And because it was PBS, we negotiated a deal with this company Illumina which sequences everybody. American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. So we knew he was Irish. 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. In 2021, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania honored Gates with itsFoundersAward. These American faces, we learn, are the descendants of colonialists, aboriginals, overseers, bondspeople, interned citizens, and religious pilgrims. 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. GATES: Very close to them, yeah, particularly to my mother.
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