Some critics suggest that adding Black literature will diminish the value of the Western canon, while separatists say that Gates is too accommodating to the dominant white culture in his advocacy of integration of the canon. And another person to interpret my genetic data because it's 6 billion base pairs, right? And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. 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. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of Black literature and Black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" Black canon. The womans suffering is assuaged at long last when she revisits the land and people that indelibly shaped her, including a local herbal healer. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. On the same night Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr . The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. But I think that you should have to get permission before someone is creeping around in your DNA. TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Because you've talked to everybody about their genealogy, I want to talk with you about yours and what you've learned about yourself and the larger meaning of what you've learned about yourself. After that I would say I was a teacher. If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. Know Thyself, the final episode, which shares its title with the slogan of Knome Inc., focuses mostly on genetic genealogy. GROSS: So when you had your DNA done, did you have a wish for a certain area of Africa or a certain group of African people who you wanted to be your ancestors? I regret we are out of time. Elizabeth Gates, the daughter of prominent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, is in her twenties and suffered a severe stroke just four months ago. ", 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. Brub, Michael (Spring 1994). Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (@henrylouisgates) Instagram photos and videos henrylouisgates Verified Follow 519 posts 129K followers 173 following Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Dir. But we can expect some acknowledgment and interpretation of technologys limits. And so he introduced me to the Yoruba people. Yet no lens is provided through which to interpret this genealogical bombshell. At one point, Johnny even told the KKK in a statement that Vivian was white. But mutations exist. And I sat down. The show's third season was postponed after it was discovered that actor Ben Affleck had persuaded Gates to omit information about his slave-owning ancestors. 9. They had a medical doctor who specializes in sharing this information. GATES: You know, I'm totally exposed. DNA-derived genealogical information may also collide with other ways of rendering kinship and relation. That shocking news is relayed to Gladwell in an exchange pregnant with anxiety and uneasiness on the part of both men. 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. Malcolm Gladwell hears some shocking news in Gates's latest PBS show. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. Gatess father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. Director, Hutchins Center, African & African American Research, Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard. I don't think that's true for very many people in this room or any - or many people who are watching this show. summa cum laude in history from Yale University and his M.A. And if you're Ashkenazi Jewish, you might have a higher risk for those kind of things or Tay-Sachs. By Alondra Nelson. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? GROSS: There's some people who are trying to use genealogy to out people who are white supremacists and say, oh, you think you're so pure white, that that's such a big deal? (January 21, 2015), Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Potomac State College of West Virginia University. And that imprinted this woman's story in my mind. In 1980 Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. Now you can get a full sequence for less than $5,000 - some people say $1,000 or $2,000. When the physical damage finally healed, his right leg was two inches shorter than his left. According to a police report, Gates refused to cooperate when he was later questioned in his home, which resulted in his arrest. Professor Gates is the host of the documentary " Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. So reading this - that she's a mulatto; she'd been a slave - the first question that comes to my mind - and I don't know if it was the first question that came to yours - was, was she raped by the man who owned her? And I gave it to her for birthday. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. 22,158 talking about this. It comes from slavery. GROSS: Is that too personal? And remarkably, she's now able to. After an evening at a bachelorette party, she woke up with what she thought was a hangover. 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. 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. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). No one's ever asked me that, but the answer's yes because I studied with a person who has been on your show, Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, when I went to the University of Cambridge. 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. [20], In September 1995, Gates narrated a five-part abridgement (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4.[21]. And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. In 1984, Gates was recruited by Cornell University with an offer of tenure; Gates asked Yale whether the university would match Cornell's offer, but they declined. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. 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 they fought in the Revolutionary War. And that is the lesson of "Finding Your Roots. So I would say, you know, no, I don't think so. You know, and your family was, one of them anyways, was in the Revolutionary War. Black people came here - not willingly, of course. 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. doi:10.2307/1208745. 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. And my grandfather was so white, we called him Casper behind his back. 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. In 1995, he received the Golden Plate Award of the. GATES: But then they did another special test. [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. I said, well, I've never met Donald Trump. 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. GATES: Oh, my father and I were the first father and son of any race and the first African-Americans fully sequenced. And my brother went off to dental school. And she's the cook for Claudette Colbert. In 2010, Gates wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that discussed the role played by Africans in the Atlantic slave trade. GATES: I did an episode with Oprah and Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. As soon as the Civil War ended, they became common law husband and wife GATES: Which was illegal in Mississippi. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. 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? 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". That's a long time when you're young. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. 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. And the geneticists have found the identity finally of Jane Gates's paramour, the man GATES: Yes. So everybody who showed up on this continent is from someplace else. . And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". And I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. I can do it. His work has rooted African-American literary criticism in the African-American vernacular tradition.[12]. And I was shocked by that. The minister would call on her. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. Gates has such an eminent reputation", she said, "and so much gravitas. Daughter Elizabeth Gates interviews her dad about . And what's the real showstopper for me is the fact that my three sets of my fourth great grandparents lived 18 miles from where I was born. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. As a prominent Black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study Black culture. So where does that come from? In "Root Worker," a short . And I think that we throw terms like that around too loosely. GROSS: And it's a way of outing people as not being who they think they are and not recognizing that we're all descended from so many different people. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a Black mouth or a white mouth. 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. As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions. The "You. In an article for Newsweek, journalist Lisa Miller reported on the reaction to Gates' article: The enemy of individuality is groupthink, Gates says, and here he holds everyone accountable. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school.