CORNISH: That's NPR's TV critic, Eric Deggans. Things change. One way of comparing research reports and family history books is to imagine a car: A research report is like the cars engine. You get your Y DNA from your father, and that's what makes me a man. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a popular and revered scholar who has written many acclaimed books and made many acclaimed documentaries about black history (and was also forced to drink a beer with the . 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? And then it was a property requirement. Why book banning is back in 2022 - Vox . For privacy reasons, it is not usually possible to get a sample of an entire book. And your father was a tailor, which is why we GATES: And my mother went to Atlantic City. "This is a series about the range the range of Blackness and its full complexity, including out-of-the-box manifestations that you never would have dreamed of.". GATES: So obviously somebody gave her that money. Gates Jr. continued, "Brian, you know, broke down in tears because his grandfather was his hero. The researchers also found that as many as one in 12 men in Ireland have the same DNA as the Irish king -- and in Ireland's northwest, that figure rises to one in five. Some genealogists also offer hardbound or digital family history books, which are probably what youre after, if youre reading this blog post. The whole world calls me Skip. GATES: They don't do that anymore for this particular kind of - I had a broken hip. GROSS: Is that too personal? The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. 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. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and . Henry Louis Gate was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, W.Va. And I wanted to be from them. GROSS: I think they're doing it through records and not through, like, secretly getting their blood samples. It comes from slavery. - like the Aunt Jemima figure. And I think that that's sad. And I loved the news. GATES: And I gave it to my mother once. 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 wrote a friend of his who was a top executive at Sony to ask for advice after Affleck objected to the inclusion of all this slavery material, so those emails came out in April after hackers took a bunch of information from Sony and WikiLeaks published the material. When youre comparing professional genealogists, it is helpful to read their other writing. 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? Affleck himself posted an apology on Facebook, saying that he'd talked to Gates about these changes, but the process was, quote, "collaborative." On Finding Your Roots, researchers may spend upwards of 100 hours or more on a single guests tree and DNA analysis combined (or so Ive heard). Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. So you found out that your ancestors were, like, 18 miles away from where you lived. Despite being known for playing the menacing Logan Roy in HBO's Succession, Gates Jr. explains how the formidable actor was reduced to tears by revelations about his family history. GATES: And my father lived to be 97 1/2 without any dementia. Variety has an exclusive first look at Gates' appearance; scroll down for [] To be clear, I dont work for Finding Your Roots; Im just a professional genealogist who knows people who have worked on the show and I was present for the filming of an episode. Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. Two men at the center of the controversy are linked by their Irish heritage. GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. And I make it every week over and over with "Finding Your Roots.". If we apply those percentages to the last . "When I was filming Oprah, I realized that I had misunderstood the narrative arc of the shoot. Does race exist? If you remember, it was called "African-American Lives." In the show, notable guests discover their family roots based on genealogical research and DNA results. GATES: But then they did another special test. Furthermore, he is credited for 14 documentaries, and some of the most noted ones are: let the church say, Amen, Africa's great civilization, and many more. War, Thinking, Civilization. (Preston Crawley) "I love being in Utah because I love genealogy," Henry Louis Gates Jr. said as he addressed BYU . In a real book from a genealogist, context like that provided by Mr. Gates on the show would be written down, so that you could read the book yourself without needing an interpreter to explain things. African American Lives welcomed guests like Quincy Jones, Chris Tucker, Mae C. Jemison, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. GATES: I did an episode with Oprah and Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. John Lithgow and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. are DNA cousins! GROSS: And then your slightly more contemporary ancestors not having any rights in the country, you know, or very few rights - not being able to vote, having to live in segregation. He has chaired Harvard University's department of Afro-American Studies for many years. That the emotional apex would not be around them discovering where in Africa their mother's mother's line came from. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. When Henry Louis Gates Sr was born on 8 June 1913, in Patterson Creek, Mineral, West Virginia, United States, his father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates, was 34 and his mother, Helen Gertrude Redman, was 31. But maybe youre thinking, But Im not here for a research report. Gates has been awarded many titles, such as Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, to name a few. It is also the name of Irish pubs all over the world. A family history book typically displays the conclusions about your family history, without overly emphasizing what went into reaching those conclusions. But on the other hand, Terry, there were a lot of people who never forgave the country for electing a black man to the White House. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Watch: Ed Norton reacts to slave-owning ancestors in "Finding Your Roots". (PBS, 2019), and the related books, Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow, with Tonya Bolden (Scholastic, 2019), and Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White . There he found that he shared 10 of the 11 DNA matches with offspring of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fourth century warlord who created one of the dominant strains of Irish genealogy because he had so many offspring. 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? Listen 9:01. It doesn't exist. Except in the next scene, I showed him their headstones. So PBS started an internal investigation to figure out what happened, and then on Wednesday they issued their findings. 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. His dynasty lasted for centuries, continuing up until the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland at the end of the 16th century. And the DNA tests we were doing at that time - when they analyzed my Y DNA, it went to Ireland. And just the optics of a seeing a rich, white movie star pressure a black historian into suppressing information about this guy's slave-owning past and his family, that's really bad on all kinds of levels. To be clear, I don't work for Finding Your Roots; I'm just a professional genealogist who knows people who have worked on the show and I was present for the filming of an episode. An error has occured while loading the map. Writing samples might range from blog posts to published research in peer-reviewed journals. My mother used to read me - the greatest book ever written to me was "The Poky Little Puppy," right? But it's just not those two genetic lines. So where does that come from? It is the first known work of its kind and has great historical and literary significance. Watch the full episode at PBS.org/FindingYourRoots. Last year, Gates uncovered a manuscript of a novel purportedly written in the 1850s by an African American woman who had been a slave. And you - the last scene is the funeral. GATES: No. Henry Louis Gates is an American literary critic, historian, professor, filmmaker, and public intellectual. In a commentary in the New York Times, prominent historian, educator Henry Louis Gates cited the work of historian Carter Woodson, pioneer in 1926 of what has become Black History Month. You know, I try to - doing "Finding Your Roots" is a way to paying homage to my mother and father every year. I know, those are some of my favorite reveals on the show, too. And it's for my father. The video will be available shortly. And our family - my cousin, Johnny Gates (ph), still owns that house to this day. All Rights Reserved. Preview E. Larry is joined by professor, historian, and host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots Henry Louis Gates Jr. 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. This kind of research has been especially important for African-Americans whose ancestors had their names and families taken away when they were enslaved. And that is the lesson of "Finding Your Roots. 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. I said, well, I've never met Donald Trump. Some people get really excited about what goes on under the hood, but some peoples eyes glaze over a bit. GROSS: Thank you for all of all of the things you've written for your TV shows, for your movies. "What's really changed our series and distinguishes it from Who Do You Think You Are? Some books have a lot of pictures, while others have zero or very few images. Gates attended Yale University and the University of Cambridge. Help me understand why this matters. They know about their heritage.' As host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Gates tells celebrities about their family history. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A new, four-part PBS series aspires to showcase the beauty, joy and achievements of the Black community. Ahead of the latest episode on PBS, which features Brian Cox and Viola Davis, Gates Jr. sat down with Newsweek to discuss the origins of the show, and why it's superior to other ancestry shows on TV. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. 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. Gates is the host of the TV genealogy series "Finding Your Roots." What is race? So my whole life is really an attempt to honor and please my parents and make them proud of me, you know. In 2009, when I did "Faces Of America," a retail value of full genomic sequencing was $300,000. If so, youre in luck! The Finding Your Roots host said discoveries about families like Cox's is a welcome lesson. Be sure to watch Finding Your Roots on PBS on Tuesday nights! The show proved so successful, it was continued in various guises before eventually developing into Finding Your Roots. That indicates that they do them regularly, which is a positive sign. "I've been in school since August 31 1956, when I started first grade, I've never left school," Gates Jr. said. GROSS: But you had family that passed for white. Abby Wolf (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2012), a collection of three decades of his work, was published in 2012. So overseer, slave plantation - rape, right? He is an American professor, historian, filmmaker, and literary critic. And I couldn't imagine what, but two sets of those fourth great-grandparents are from my mother's line. FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Season Nine is a production of McGee Media, Inkwell Media, Kunhardt Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Corporate support for FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH . It's a horrible way to start, in a way. As of 2014, he has written seventeen books and created thirteen . GATES: Don't you? Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes actors Claire Danes and Jeff Daniels on a journey into their roots, uncovering primal scenes from our nation's past. Isn't that a cool thing? Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy. Jeff Daniels sits with "Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates Jr. in an episode from Season 9 on PBS. 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. My momma called me Skippy from the time I was born. Henry Louis Gates. July 23, 2009 / 7:43 AM / CBS. edit data. CLIP. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. 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. And the black woman says all she wants is enough money to have a New Orleans-type funeral. Thanks to an encounter with a family scrapbook at a young age, ancestry fascinates Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Emmy-winning filmmaker, author and Harvard University professor raised in the tiny town of Piedmont, West Virginia. PBS. But just in case youre not, there are other ways to get the Finding Your Roots experience off-screen. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. He also wrote many non-fiction books on African American history, and won many awards in the process. However, it is perfectly acceptable to ask to view some sample pages or images to give you an idea of what youre getting. And she dies of a broken heart because her little girl passes for white and goes off - and never sees her again. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? Well, I'll tell you a funny story. You know, we used to say tribe, but now that's not politically correct - so the Yoruba ethnic group in Western Nigeria. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. Henry Louis Gates Jr. doesn't seem too worried about "critical race theory" or "white fragility" or "woke warriors" or any of those ridiculous buzzwords that get tossed around when . Well, that might be related to police excesses and abuses, but it's a far end of the . Of course, you can do that through mitochondrial DNA," he told Newsweek. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl. The minister would call on her. And we're listening to Terry's interview with Henry Louis Gates. Professor Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr AP. GROSS: Yeah. When I was a boy, I was closer to my mother than my father. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. And he fought in - for the Continental Army. I go, goodbye. Listen to National Gallery of Art panel discussions featuring Image of the Black series editors David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as well as HUP editor Sharmila Sen: Part I | Part II | Part III; In conjunction with Harvard's Du Bois Institute, The Root hosted an "Image of the Week" series featuring art from the Image of the Black archive. The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived. 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