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He is on the boards of many notable institutions, including the, In 2010, Gates became the first African American to have his, In December 2014, Gates was announced as one of 14 recipients of a 2015. GATES: So obviously somebody gave her that money. [9] Gates accepted the offer by Cornell in 1985 and taught there until 1989. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. After an evening at a bachelorette party, she woke up with what she thought was a hangover. My mother was a seamstress, as you know. All rights reserved. And I loved the news. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. 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". Black people came here - not willingly, of course. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. 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. Does race exist? He was a graduate of Frederick Street High School and in 1998 received an honorary doctorate degree from Seton Hall University. 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. GROSS: So I want to squeeze in one more question. 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. OK. 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. I only did black people. [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. I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. GATES: And I gave it to my mother once. GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. GATES: Well, I was on "The View." They had two geneticists. Clarke, Breena, and Susan Tifft, "A 'Race Man' Argues for a Broader Curriculum: Henry Louis Gates Jr. And the last thing I did before I went to bed on July 2, 1960, was to look up the word estimable. On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. GATES: I'll never - I love you, Mama. And they stayed home, and they read. The latter, tracing the ancestral history of contemporary figures, was especially popular. Cameo as a digital presentation of a fictional version of himself as, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:56. And at this point, I'd run over to my mother and say, Mama, I'll never pass for white, Mama. 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. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. 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. Joe Biden launched his presidential bid in April with a bold . And GATES: Yeah. [34] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. This is called an admixture test. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. Many of us were troubled. Prosecutors later dropped the charges. Even if you were free and you were black GATES: In most states, you weren't allowed to vote. [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. 6. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn. And I was shocked by that. What percent would be from Europe? While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison. It was better to be free than be a slave, but you were free but not free. 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. 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. GATES: admixture, I'm 50 percent sub-Saharan African and 50 percent European and virtually no Native American ancestry, which really pisses my family off. Each of the genetic analyses used in Facesadmixture analysis, haplotype grouping, and relative mappingincorporate underlying assumptions and algorithms that may be incompatible with the other techniques. What do you think of that? And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. GATES: Yeah, I loved books. 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. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. Yeah. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. 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. So everybody who showed up on this continent is from someplace else. The daughter of prominent black scholar and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said her father's arrest last week at his Cambridge home has deeply saddened him. It was really, like, the photograph of her - of your great-great-aunt Jane Gates. And deep down, I realized in retrospect that my desire to make films was probably born about that time. And she come to - it's the woman who invents box pancake mix - right? 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. 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. GATES: No. GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. The new season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. "Up until that recent piece, people would have thought of him as someone who took a cautious and nuanced approach to questions like reparations. Omissions? And they would be published in the newspaper. Isn't that a cool thing? "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. Read about President Obama's comments on Gates's arrest. Sgt. Advertisement Updates? 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. GATES: I said, thank God. 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. GATES: That's true. 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. 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. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. So everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the climax when Delilah - is her name - the character. And the average African-American has less than 1 percent Native American ancestry, but they have 24 percent European ancestry. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. 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 I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. When we left off, Gates was talking about his own DNA mix. He learned the truth when he appeared on an episode of the new PBS series Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, with his fair skin and blue eyes, had long . GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. Discomfort is also experienced by the viewer. (January 21, 2015), Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Potomac State College of West Virginia University. 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. ", The lesson of "Finding Your Roots" - we're all immigrants. GROSS: Thank you for all of all of the things you've written for your TV shows, for your movies. Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. GROSS: But you had family that passed for white. Remember all the talk about post-racialism that GATES: We thought when Obama - we had turned a corner, and we could, you know, beat our - the plowshares into pruning hooks - right? The recipient of fifty-six honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a . 10. 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? They had kids, and they're buried next to each other. And I wanted to be from them. GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. In October 1975, he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. 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. "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". And she throws herself on the casket. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. And they have a horse-drawn carriage. "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!" . That's the way it is. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? 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". The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. A Letter from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to his daughters Maggie and Lisa I enjoy the unselfconscious moments of a shared cultural intimacy, whatever form they take, when no one else is watching, when no white people are around. The event led to public criticism of the Cambridge police department by U.S. Pres. Or they stayed home, and they listened to or played music. 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). 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. 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? By Henry Louis Gates Jr. Not all U.S. presidents are missed once they leave the White House. 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. I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. In 2021, Gates was named a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and elected to the Johnsonsians (Society). DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates speaking with Terry Gross in May of last year. 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. Season 8. Of course not. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. After that, everything stopped. 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. 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. And I was just overwhelmed with emotion. 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. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. 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. 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 the reason I wanted to be a writer is that my mother wrote so beautifully and read so beautifully. At the age of 14, Gates suffered a hairline fracture of the ball-and-socket joint in his hip while playing touch football. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? Gates wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and a NAACP Image Award. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. Gat. And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an American treasure. Joness tale offers some insight into the appeal of genealogy, another effort at reconnection with home and kin, and ballast against the tumult of modern living. 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 then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. He received the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the highest honor in the field of public television. Tune in for all-new episodes as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores fascinating ancestries and family mysteries for an array of . That yearning manifests itself in many ways, from anomie to ethnic mutual-aid associations. 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. Gates says John Morton Blum, a professor in Yale's history department, was his mentor. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. 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. 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. 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. In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. 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? In 1973 he entered Clare College, Cambridge, where one of his tutors was the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. That shocking news is relayed to Gladwell in an exchange pregnant with anxiety and uneasiness on the part of both men. James . 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. DNA-derived genealogical information may also collide with other ways of rendering kinship and relation. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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." And I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Mixing cutting-edge DNA research and old-school genealogical sleuthing, FINDING YOUR ROOTS . And I was in the hospital for six weeks. 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. 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. [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. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. From Blum, he says, he learned a lot about writing and history. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. 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. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. That's not the way it was. So you found out that your ancestors were, like, 18 miles away from where you lived. They were buried next to each other. Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia,[2] to Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (19161987) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c. 19132010). We defended the right of every American to vote. 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. Gatess father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Gates graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in 1968 and attended a local junior college before enrolling at Yale University, where he received a bachelors degree in history in 1973. But then President Obama called you both together. GATES: And think about it. "[14], As a mediator between those advocating separatism and those believing in a Western canon, Gates has been criticized by both. Other TV credits included the documentary miniseries Wonders of the African World (1999), Black in Latin America (2011), The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013), and Reconstruction: America After the Civil War (2019). They lived together. Henry Louis Gates's Extended Family. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. But we have a disproportionately higher risk of sickle cell. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. In 2012, The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. At one point, Johnny even told the KKK in a statement that Vivian was white. 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. In 2021, Gates became the seventh recipient of the, In 2021, Gates received the prestigious Gold Medal from. On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . 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. In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. ", 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. An X-ray showed a bright portion that revealed just how much of her brain tissue was destroyed. And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. 1. Malcolm Gladwell hears some shocking news in Gates's latest PBS show. My dad got into a public battle with the KKK and so I knew about that, and it was scary, Rosanne said during the PBS special. Gates traced the practice of signifyin to Esu, the trickster figure of Yoruba mythology, and to the figure of the signifying monkey, with which Esu is closely associated. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. As a prominent Black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study Black culture. You know, no matter how different we appear phenotypically, under the skin we're 99.99 percent the same. When the physical damage finally healed, his right leg was two inches shorter than his left. 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. GROSS: OK. I hope you never come back, you know? . 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 fruits of the unearthed family treehistorical coherence; redemptive narratives of migration and assimilation; intergenerational social mobilityare unevenly dispersed. We started to roll. GROSS: OK, for two weeks. The forms of genealogical tracing that star in Faces function doubly: both splitting and lumping.