[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 he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784. After receiving two fellowships in 1970, he took a leave of absence from Yale to visit Africa, working as an anesthetist in a hospital in Tanzania and then traveling through other African nations. 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. We'd spit in a test tube. And I was in the hospital for six weeks. Director, Hutchins Center, African & African American Research, Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard. And the title is Race Is A Social Construction, But Mutations Are Real" (ph). The minister would call on her. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. My great-great-grandfather's now been found. GATES: Yeah. 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. And they fought in the Revolutionary War. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. Updates? Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. After an evening at a bachelorette party, she woke up with what she thought was a hangover. And I think that that's sad. 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. 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? And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. And we filmed the whole thing. 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. And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. And there were a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump as a repudiation vote. 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. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. And the DNA tests we were doing at that time - when they analyzed my Y DNA, it went to Ireland. From Blum, he says, he learned a lot about writing and history. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school. Copyright 2019 NPR. 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. [3], Gates learned through research that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. He received the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the highest honor in the field of public television. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. 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 . Contemporary Literature. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. Race is a social construction. While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison. After that, everything stopped. Now she was born in 1819; died in 1888. 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. 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). As a prominent Black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study Black culture. 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). 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 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. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. 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. GROSS: Is that too personal? 6.4K views 13 years ago Elizabeth Gates, the daughter of arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates, takes a few minutes to call CNN from Martha's Vineyard and talk to Don Lemon about the. 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. Surely, most people of African descent do not expect to find a black slave owner in their family tree. Gates has joined the Sons of the American Revolution. GROSS: Yeah. But it's just not those two genetic lines. The book tells stories about Gates's parents, his lifelong nickname, Skippy, and his brother, Rocky. 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. They flew him in from San Francisco. GATES: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. 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. As editor-in-chief of the online magazine the Root, Gates has a background in journalism. The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. JSTOR1208745. You were 9 years old when you found her picture. GROSS: And I read you talking about this. 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. But the ancestry is being investigated against the will of the people being outed. [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. It comes from slavery. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. We know that BRCA1, BRCA2 - they're genetic. GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. He's received 50 honorary degrees from such institutions as Harvard University and Williams College. Gates has such an eminent reputation", she said, "and so much gravitas. Gates was also involved with various television documentaries that were aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 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 at the time, the airwaves were so segregated, they only put black films on "The Late Late Show." I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Cambridge is a long way from Piedmont, but Gates traces the journey in his 1994 memoir, Colored People. GROSS: But it's making me think of how much death figured into your formative thoughts - the death of your grandfather, which led you to see the picture of your great-great-grandmother, everybody's deaths through your mother memorialized in those obituaries. In front of all these people and all these viewers. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. GATES: Very close to them, yeah, particularly to my mother. GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. 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. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? Testing showed he had ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, Ireland and England. On other occasions, though it was rare, blacks did enslave other blacks for their labor. 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". 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). That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . President Barack Obama, a friend of Gates, said that the Cambridge Police Department had acted "stupidly" in the arrest. 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. And I don't think that he understands how much power that - to heal, to bind that the Oval Office metaphorically has. Gat. In 2021, the National World War Two Museum recognized Gates with its American Spirit Award. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. But it is clear, in any case, that we fully inhabit a genealogical society"to use the anthropologist Elizabeth Povinellis phrase. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? 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. . Well, I'll tell you a funny story. And I hope they are. 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. 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. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. 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? The arrest attracted national attention after U.S. President Barack Obama controversially declared that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting the 59-year-old Gates. Historical evidence suggests that intraracial slavery was uncommon, and that when it did occur, sometimes free men and women of color purchased enslaved relatives and friends to rescue them from the cruelty of the chattel system, if not the social death of slave status. And she come to - it's the woman who invents box pancake mix - right? What percent would be Native American? According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. Later, he acquired and authenticated the manuscript of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, a novel from the same period that scholars believe may have been written as early as 1853. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. GATES: Otherwise they wouldn't be in a database. [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. And I wanted to be from them. After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. And I sat down. Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. In 2021, Gates was named a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and elected to the Johnsonsians (Society). or subscribe. Gates's prominence led to his being called as a witness on behalf of the controversial Florida rap group 2 Live Crew in an obscenity case. 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 honored by PEN America with its Audible Literary Service Award. I mean, they know Donald Trump. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. GROSS: Whoa. When I became a teenager, my father and I bonded. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. "[30][31], Following a trip to China, Gates returned home to his residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard Square on July 16, 2009, only to find the front door jammed. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. So we knew he was Irish. He argues, "It can't be real as a subject if you have to look like the subject to be an expert in the subject,"[13] adding, "It's as ridiculous as if someone said I couldn't appreciate Shakespeare because I'm not Anglo-Saxon. So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". You know, and your family was, one of them anyways, was in the Revolutionary War. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. I regret we are out of time. 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. Prosecutors later dropped the charges. But they came from someplace else. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. It was just put on the historic GATES: Register in Maryland. 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. In 1980 Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia,[2] to Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (19161987) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c. 19132010). 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. Season 8. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? - like the Aunt Jemima figure. But then President Obama called you both together. It was astonishing. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. There we go. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. That's not the way it was. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. And I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. 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. 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. But I also watched TV. In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. GATES: I said, thank God. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. And we're listening to Terry's interview with Henry Louis Gates.