GATES: Maybe for Christmas, OK, that's fine (laughter). Terry. 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: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. 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. An X-ray showed a bright portion that revealed just how much of her brain tissue was destroyed. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. 6. And then black people would tell each other - they would say, you know, be sure to watch "The Late Late Show" tonight because "Imitation Of Life," which is my favorite film - 1934, with Claudette Colbert. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn. And the geneticists have found the identity finally of Jane Gates's paramour, the man GATES: Yes. 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. GROSS: (Laughter) So I want to change the subject a little bit. His early life is described in his memoir that is entitled, Colored People (1994). More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. 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. Barack Obama. I hope you never come back, you know? and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. As editor-in-chief of the online magazine the Root, Gates has a background in journalism. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. And consequently, you are now a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. And I'm wondering if being laid up from an injury for a while affected your desire to - and your time to immerse yourself in books. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Britannica After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. 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. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. 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. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. 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. [5], At the age of 14, Gates was injured playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his right hip, resulting in a slipped capital femoral epiphysis. 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. GROSS: OK. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. But it's just not those two genetic lines. And she come to - it's the woman who invents box pancake mix - right? [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. So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991. 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). And the black woman says all she wants is enough money to have a New Orleans-type funeral. Because the series is so successful in demonstrating the intersections between world history and personal history, the lack of contextualization here is notable. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? GROSS: But you had family that passed for white. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. Black people came here - not willingly, of course. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. 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. 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. What do you think of that? Yeah. 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. GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. You know, and your family was, one of them anyways, was in the Revolutionary War. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. Joe Biden launched his presidential bid in April with a bold . The fifth season of Gates' TV series "Finding Your Roots" is now running on PBS. GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com. We cant hold a documentary for a general audience responsible for not presenting a complex metanarrative on the philosophy of genetic science. Because of the injury, Gates now uses a cane when he walks.[6][7]. So you GATES: Because of this white man. As a child, Gates said he wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar. GROSS: Totally stunned. But they came from someplace else. And that is a long time. Gatess father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. 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). In 2021, Gates became the seventh recipient of the, In 2021, Gates received the prestigious Gold Medal from. Cambridge police officers were dispatched. President Obama's comments on Gates's arrest. People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. DNA-derived genealogical information may also collide with other ways of rendering kinship and relation. 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. These American faces, we learn, are the descendants of colonialists, aboriginals, overseers, bondspeople, interned citizens, and religious pilgrims. Over . Armstrong Williams, a person I really admire and like, I ask him, and he said absolutely not. When we left off, Gates was talking about his own DNA mix. It's incredible. 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. As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. ", 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. GATES: Yeah, yeah. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. 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. 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. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. Gates wrote a book about Jay Rockefeller's campaign to be governor of West Virginia. All that was on still in 1965 in syndication. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. 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. It was just misdiagnosed. And I think that we throw terms like that around too loosely. 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. I mean, they know Donald Trump. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. I regret we are out of time. And, although full genome sequencing is becoming more common and affordable, haplotype grouping relies upon the more narrow analysis of mtDNA and Y-DNA. [25][26][27] Finding Your Roots resumed in January 2016.[28]. The womans suffering is assuaged at long last when she revisits the land and people that indelibly shaped her, including a local herbal healer.