GATES: Yeah, yeah. My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. For example, while haplogroupssets of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are gene-sequence variants that are inherited together and categorized by letter and number (A, L3D, R, U5b, etc. GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. Barack Obama. 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. In the second season of the program, Gates learned that he is part of a genetic subgroup that may be descended from or related to the fourth-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. 4. And he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784. Surely, most people of African descent do not expect to find a black slave owner in their family tree. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people. The book tells stories about Gates's parents, his lifelong nickname, Skippy, and his brother, Rocky. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. Both would be just as important. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. And then it was a property requirement. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of "[14], As a mediator between those advocating separatism and those believing in a Western canon, Gates has been criticized by both. 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. She paid cash for that house in what was largely a white neighborhood. GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. Theyve Had an Inappropriate Relationship For Months, How Black Creators Can Expand Their Network with LinkedIn. 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. And I was exhilarated. Yeah. GATES: Now, we don't do blood anymore, right? I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. He grew up in neighboring Piedmont. "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 found the first edition when I was an adult. You might have prostate cancer that runs in your family. I love you being black. In 2020, Gates earned a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction for his book. So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. Daughter Elizabeth Gates interviews her dad about . Whereas prior shows relied heavily on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome (Y-DNA), yielding results that included at most about 2 percent of ones complete genetic inheritance, in Faces techniques are used that probe deeper into more of the genome. 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. 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. GATES: OK. of Hutchins Center at @harvard. If that date is correct, it would have precedence as the first-known novel written in the United States by an African American. 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. Having grown up in an African-American community, however, he identifies as Black. But we can expect some acknowledgment and interpretation of technologys limits. ". And the title is Race Is A Social Construction, But Mutations Are Real" (ph). One of eight children born to Edward St. Lawrence Gates and Helen Gertrude Redman Gates, he was the youngest of seven sons. [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. As a literary historian committed to the preservation and study of historical texts, Gates has been integral to the Black Periodical Literature Project, a digital archive of Black newspapers and magazines created with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. GROSS: Yeah. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. Author Herb Boyd, who teaches African and African-American history at the College of New Rochelle and City College, CUNY, argued that despite the complicity of African monarchs in the Atlantic slave trade, the United States "was the greatest beneficiary, and thus should be the main compensator". He draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to analyze texts and assess matters of identity politics. And, although full genome sequencing is becoming more common and affordable, haplotype grouping relies upon the more narrow analysis of mtDNA and Y-DNA. And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. 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? Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? And they fought in the Revolutionary War. Would you do it? 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 the damnedest thing I ever heard. In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, these genetic techniques may be inconsistent with the aims of conventional genealogy. or subscribe. In 2021, the National World War Two Museum recognized Gates with its American Spirit Award. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. 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. In "Root Worker," a short . Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest continues to cause controversy after President Obama criticized police action, Michelle Gielan reports. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. So I want to read something that you wrote about her. 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. GROSS: I saw his picture in the obituary. Contemporary Literature. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. 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 I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Head Negro In Charge. And he, and you, the officer and Joe Biden sat down, had a beer or two. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. And then when we go - when you were buried, she would stand up. Gat. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. 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. Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers. 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: Yeah, I loved books. So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? 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 . He loved the news. GATES: And think about it. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. In front of all these people and all these viewers. 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. 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? GROSS: I think they're doing it through records and not through, like, secretly getting their blood samples. 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. American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director. 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. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates spoke with Terry Gross before a live audience in Philadelphia last May. Henry was born in Patterson Creek, W.Va., on June 8, 1913. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Read about President Obama's comments on Gates's arrest. So you GATES: Because of this white man. 1. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. One wishes that Gates, an inimitable literary scholar well before he became a pathbreaking Renaissance man, might have alluded to another of Edward P. Joness works, The Known World, a historical novel exploring life in an antebellum community in which both blacks and whites hold black slaves, by way of even partial explanation. GROSS: Is that too personal? Graduated from Piedmont High School in 1968, Gates attended Potomac State College of West Virginia University before transferring to Yale University, from which, in 1973, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in history, summa cum laude, and he gained membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Speaks onstage during the 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise' panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses. GATES: And we - they only put - remember "The Late Show"? In 1973 he entered Clare College, Cambridge, where one of his tutors was the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. GATES: I'll never - I love you, Mama. And I would watch this beautiful, brilliant goddess. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. Clarke, Breena, and Susan Tifft, "A 'Race Man' Argues for a Broader Curriculum: Henry Louis Gates Jr. As soon as the Civil War ended, they became common law husband and wife GATES: Which was illegal in Mississippi. 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. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. 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). This kind of research has been especially important for African-Americans whose ancestors had their names and families taken away when they were enslaved. But mutations exist. [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. 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. But the ancestry is being investigated against the will of the people being outed. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. They - but you're absolutely right. And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. And you - the last scene is the funeral. 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. The Native American writer Erdrich refuses to assent to genetic ancestry testing, because she understands her DNA to belong to her community. But when I started the series, it wasn't called "Finding Your Roots." And then he'd - and I read quite a lot. They flew him in from San Francisco. 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. More than anyone else, the historian is responsible for "entertaining the idea remotely" that Gates could become a writer. They had a medical doctor who specializes in sharing this information. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. And she was a beautiful woman. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. In addition to Rosanne, Vivian and Johnny welcomed three other daughters: Cindy, Kathy and Tara. Omissions? 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? GROSS: OK. On October 23, 2006, Gates was appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor at Harvard University. GATES: Oh, my father and I were the first father and son of any race and the first African-Americans fully sequenced. GATES: Right after the Beer Summit, it all went away. 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. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. 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.. He looked white. Gatess father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. [34] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. 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. And I hope they are. GATES: But then they did another special test. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Was this an equal sexual relationship? The current PBS documentary miniseries Faces of America traces the family histories of 12 prominent people who, over the course of several hours and with the aid of conventional and genetic genealogy, come to fasten their varied tribulations and successes to the arc of ancestry. In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. In 2021, Gates was honored by PEN America with its Audible Literary Service Award. 35 (1): 212227. 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. Gates considers himself a literary critic and educator. [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. We delineate our individual and collective identities based upon inclusion in and exclusion from groups. Gates argued that the pervasiveness and centrality of signifyin in African and African American literature and music means that all such expression is essentially a kind of dialogue with the literature and music of the past. doi:10.2307/1208745. GATES: And I gave it to my mother once. This is FRESH AIR. After that, everything stopped. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. [35] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. 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. It was astonishing. And they stayed home, and they read. 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. As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. Henry Louis Gates Daughters Elizabeth is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke in May 2010. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing. GROSS: It has been a great honor to speak with you. 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.. Hollywood Life [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. And I think that that's sad. He was a free negro, as we would have said then. 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. 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. Gates is the host of the TV genealogy series "Finding Your Roots." GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. 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. Brooke Williams. In 2012, The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 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. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? 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: And then there was "The Late Late Show." 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. Armstrong Williams, a person I really admire and like, I ask him, and he said absolutely not. 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. 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." By Henry Louis Gates Jr. 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. 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 surprising reveals, coupled with the celebrities raw reactions to the information conveyed by the host, deliver moments of high drama and genuine emotion. But we have a disproportionately higher risk of sickle cell. And the reason I wanted to be a writer is that my mother wrote so beautifully and read so beautifully. 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. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? These American faces, we learn, are the descendants of colonialists, aboriginals, overseers, bondspeople, interned citizens, and religious pilgrims. So I would say, you know, no, I don't think so. GROSS: Totally stunned. You get your Y DNA from your father, and that's what makes me a man. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. Joe Biden launched his presidential bid in April with a bold . But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. James . "My father was so sad. We're all admixed. The world just isn't like that. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com. This program examined the genealogy of 12 North Americans of diverse ancestry: Elizabeth Alexander, Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Louise Erdrich, Malcolm Gladwell, Eva Longoria, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Nichols, Queen Noor of Jordan, Mehmet Oz, Meryl Streep, and Kristi Yamaguchi. 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 . [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. So that was a steal. Lolita Buckner Inniss, a professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, argued that notwithstanding African involvement as "abductors", it was Western slave-owners, as "captors", who perpetuated the practice even after the import trade was banned. In July 2022, Gates announced that he would serve as editor-in-chief of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, a new glossary of language that will contain popular phrases used by historical Black figures and modern-day Black Americans. 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. Elizabeth had suffered a stroke, her mind irreparably harmed. African-American - I love to joke about this. This is FRESH AIR. Faces expands on those outings in topic and technique, branching out from the genealogies of prominent blacks to those of a multiracial, multiethnic group of notables, including the actors Eva Longoria and Meryl Streep, the writers Louise Erdrich and Malcolm Gladwell, the musician Yo-Yo Ma, the poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, the comedian Stephen Colbert, and Gates himself. "[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. I only did black people. 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. 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. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. You know, I try to - doing "Finding Your Roots" is a way to paying homage to my mother and father every year.
Dfas Cleveland Navy Address,
What Happened To Rowdy Robertson,
Articles H
