Black people came here - not willingly, of course. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. 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. We might think of Faces of America, then, as an allegory of the simultaneous diversity of our experiences and the deep interpenetration of our histories. That's a long time when you're young. They - but you're absolutely right. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. But then President Obama called you both together. 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. That shocking news is relayed to Gladwell in an exchange pregnant with anxiety and uneasiness on the part of both men. Season 8. Thank you so much for accepting this award. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. 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). The surprising reveals, coupled with the celebrities raw reactions to the information conveyed by the host, deliver moments of high drama and genuine emotion. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. 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? Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., called the book "an attempt to size Lincoln up through the eyes of Black Americans who visited the 'people's house' that their people had built and in whose names they were determined to win the fight for freedom and citizenship." 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. 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. His writing includes pieces in The New York Times that defend rap music and an article in Sports Illustrated that criticizes Black youth culture for glorifying basketball over education. It's incredible. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. And she's the cook for Claudette Colbert. He's received 50 honorary degrees from such institutions as Harvard University and Williams College. In July 1976, Gates was promoted to the post of lecturer in Afro-American Studies, with the understanding that he would be promoted to assistant professor upon completion of his doctoral dissertation. My mother was a seamstress, as you know. When the physical damage finally healed, his right leg was two inches shorter than his left. We defended the right of every American to vote. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And GATES: Yeah. GATES: Very close to them, yeah, particularly to my mother. And I was exhilarated. If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." Hollywood Life He looked white. In 2006, Gates wrote and produced the PBS documentary "African American Lives," the first documentary series to use genealogy and genetic science to provide an understanding of African-American history. And that is the strongest argument for brotherhood, sisterhood and the unity of the human species. You get your Y DNA from your father, and that's what makes me a man. The world just isn't like that. [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. And she throws herself on the casket. Advertisement And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net. GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. [19], In 1995, Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). Jakes and Chris Tucker. [32], The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. 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. 22,158 talking about this. Mama - I'm sorry, Mama. And if you're Ashkenazi Jewish, you might have a higher risk for those kind of things or Tay-Sachs. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. His name was John Redman. 10. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. His mother cleaned houses. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. He was 97, as you said. You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. GROSS: Let's look at your ancestry and see who's really in it. GATES: Don't you? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers. And I learned a lot about the medium. GATES: OK. 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. His taxi driver attempted to help him gain entrance. [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. GROSS: Yeah. As a Black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. 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. So we knew he was Irish. Yet genealogy is, at the same time, put to the task of heightening awareness of human relatedness, be it experiential or biological. Now think about that. And he'd make a couple - a move. As a child, Gates said he wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar. 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. He also learned that one of his African ancestors includes a Yoruba man who was trafficked to America from Ouidah in present-day Republic of Benin. 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: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. 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. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. Gates has such an eminent reputation", she said, "and so much gravitas. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. All rights reserved. And I don't know if that ruined your sports career forever, but it affected your leg forever. Contemporary Literature. But mutations exist. Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses. Barack Obama. 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". And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. 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. Gates currently serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. He was there in exile because he had been in prison and to be offering civil war for 27 months and was given a fellowship at the University of Cambridge. "Up until that recent piece, people would have thought of him as someone who took a cautious and nuanced approach to questions like reparations. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. And it's just crazy. So you GATES: Because of this white man. In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. GROSS: Yeah. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. 266. Prosecutors later dropped the charges. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. That's not the way it was. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. After that, everything stopped. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. GROSS: OK, for two weeks. In the show, notable guests discover their family roots based on genealogical research and DNA results. 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. Is this instance of intraracial slavery an anomaly? He has affirmed the value of the Western tradition, but has envisioned a more inclusive canon of diverse works sharing common cultural connections: "Every Black American text must confess to a complex ancestry, one high and low (that is, literary and vernacular) but also one white and black there can be no doubt that white texts inform and influence black texts (and vice versa), so that a thoroughly integrated canon of American literature is not only politically sound, it is intellectually sound as well. 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). The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. 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. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. And she was a beautiful woman. 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. We know that BRCA1, BRCA2 - they're genetic. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. There we go. 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. And you - the last scene is the funeral. And the average African-American has less than 1 percent Native American ancestry, but they have 24 percent European ancestry. Omissions? And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. And I wanted to be from them. GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). James . And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. Even the Native Americans came from someplace else about 16,000 years ago. GROSS: Huge story. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. 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. I only did black people. 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. In addition to Rosanne, Vivian and Johnny welcomed three other daughters: Cindy, Kathy and Tara. You know, we used to say tribe, but now that's not politically correct - so the Yoruba ethnic group in Western Nigeria. He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. And we'd have the chess board set up. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. 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. Gat. Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. 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. He has an estimated net worth of $1million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. 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 my brother went off to dental school. He loved the news. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. And most DNA companies in the United States will tell you that they have never tested an African-American who is 100 percent from sub-Saharan Africa.