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. My great-great-grandfather's now been found. But on the other hand, you can't say that biology doesn't matter because it does matter. When I was a boy, I was closer to my mother than my father. Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia,[2] to Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (19161987) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c. 19132010). Amid discussion of Malcolm Gladwells roots, Gates discloses that the best-selling authors Jamaican maternal ancestor, a free woman of color, owned slaves of African descent. 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. 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. And they fought in the Revolutionary War. That's the way it is. 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. . So you found out that your ancestors were, like, 18 miles away from where you lived. They came in slave ships. 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. Omissions? On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . 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. And I was shocked by that. In Root Worker, a short story by Edward P. Jones, a chronically ill African-American woman who migrated to Washington, D.C., from North Carolina returns to the South with her husband and daughter, a physician, in search of the cure that has eluded her for decades in the North. 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. And the geneticists have found the identity finally of Jane Gates's paramour, the man GATES: Yes. After that I would say I was a teacher. After that, everything stopped. In July 2009 Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct: After returning from traveling abroad, Gates had forced open the door to his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which precipitated a call to police from a neighbour who believed a robbery might be underway. So everybody knew that this whole thing was building to the climax when Delilah - is her name - the character. "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. The world just isn't like that. Then he'd come back. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. "Black people were so angry at me. I can do it. 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.. In 2020, Gates received the Muhammad Ali Voice of HumanityAward. Gates was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, but the charges were dropped. In 1974, Carol Stacks important ethnography All Our Kin (Harper & Row) suggested the plasticity of the designation cousin well beyond consanguinity. That's not the way it was. 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. GATES: Oh, my father and I were the first father and son of any race and the first African-Americans fully sequenced. 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 they would be published in the newspaper. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. 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. [7] In his major scholarly work, The Signifying Monkey, a 1989 American Book Award winner, Gates expressed what might constitute an African-American cultural aesthetic. This is FRESH AIR. 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. "Finding Your Roots" has become a phenomenon -- and it all began with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. receiving a piece of angry fan mail. ", 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. What does Henry Louis Gates, Jr., see as the most important form of resistance against hate? I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. A collection of moments during and after Barack Obama's presidency. Clarke, Breena, and Susan Tifft, "A 'Race Man' Argues for a Broader Curriculum: Henry Louis Gates Jr. GATES: OK. And we have a wall of degrees at home. 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. And my grandfather was so white, we called him Casper behind his back. The first time we met was when I interviewed him for "The Reflection Effect," an essay I wrote for O, the Oprah Magazine about the power of nostalgia to drive happiness and build resilience after loss. In 2020, Gates was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow by Harvard University. 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. And I wanted to be from them. His mother cleaned houses. [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. 1. Gates currently serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. GROSS: So having done your, like, ancestry and everything, were you close to your parents? "[14], As a mediator between those advocating separatism and those believing in a Western canon, Gates has been criticized by both. And when they analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, it went to England. javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net. 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? And I was in the hospital for six weeks. [19], In 1995, Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). This is called an admixture test. And I cluster more toward the Yoruba than any - because 50 percent GATES: Of my ancestry is from sub-Saharan Africa. 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. 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? People might remember the Beer Summit, when you were stopped in your own home trying to unjam a lock after a long trip. The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. As a result of research he conducted as a MacArthur Fellow, Gates discovered Our Nig, written by Harriet E. Wilson in 1859 and thought to be the first novel written in the United States by an African American. GROSS: Huge story. 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. GROSS: You had family that passed for white. At one point, Johnny even told the KKK in a statement that Vivian was white. And you don't have a Y DNA, so that's why you're a woman. It was astonishing. That's how much the science of genetics has changed in terms of the retail market since 2009. The confrontation resulted in Gates being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. And consequently, you are now a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. And deep down, I realized in retrospect that my desire to make films was probably born about that time. My mother was a seamstress, as you know. Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only Blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. It's called the Beer Summit. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. They lived together. A new season of Finding Your Roots premieres January 4, 2022! And I think that that's sad. GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? Race is a social construction. August 22, 2013, 12:00 a.m. And your father was a tailor, which is why we GATES: And my mother went to Atlantic City. GATES: Don't you? Discomfort is also experienced by the viewer. You know, and your family was, one of them anyways, was in the Revolutionary War. GROSS: Yeah. 10. There we go. I hope you never come back, you know? And she burst into tears because she used to read me that book all the time. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. I could've won the Nobel Prize, and somebody would say congratulations. Du Bois Center there at Harvard, one of GATES: Well, I think that you should have the right to - you have to ask someone. Gat. That seems to be one of the programs aspirations. Based on admixture testing, Longoria is told that she is 70 percent European, 27 percent Native American, and 3 percent African. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American literary critic Credit: Getty What is Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s net worth? But I think that Donald Trump's rhetoric and some of his actions - for instance, after Charlottesville - encourage unfavorable race relations in the United States. 35 (1): 212227. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. And then he'd - and I read quite a lot. "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". We are unable to fully display the content of this page. I go, goodbye. So you GATES: Because of this white man. 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: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. 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. He looked white. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. 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. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. GROSS: Yeah. My mother would say, tell them about your brother who's a dentist. 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. The show makes use of gene-sequencing techniques that have become widely available since African American Lives first aired, like whole-genome sequencing, which entails the mapping of all six billion base pairs in a persons DNA. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. GATES: Yeah. 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. So what I did - my father and I agreed, for science, that we'd put our genomes in the public domain so that any scholar or student can study our genome. They flew him in from San Francisco. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. What do you think of that? In front of all these people and all these viewers. And I have my mother's certificate from this vocational school where she learned to be a seamstress. As a result of the injury, Gates walks with a cane and his right leg is more than 2 inches shorter than his left. . That shocking news is relayed to Gladwell in an exchange pregnant with anxiety and uneasiness on the part of both men. After turning that corner, Sharon gave birth to Maggie, their first daughter, in July 1980, and Liza was born 18 months later. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. Gatess father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. Catch #FindingYourRoots Tuesdays at 8/7c on PBS (check local listings). Brooke Williams. 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. GATES: And I gave it to my mother once. While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. He reported:[37], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, 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. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. 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. Crockett Jr., Stephen A. Surely, most people of African descent do not expect to find a black slave owner in their family tree. As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions.