Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored 17 books and created 14 documentary films . And she was a beautiful woman. Discover Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. And you - the last scene is the funeral. Related topic Henry Louis Gates Jr. Related topic. All rights reserved. GROSS: OK. On your mother's side, you found out that you had three men in the family who were freed slaves - freed before 1776. Students pose with Henry Louis Gates Jr. following Tuesday, Nov. 19's forum. Carlos Figueroa. It doesn't exist. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. If we apply those percentages to the last . Henry Louis Gates Jr. . If youre a celebrity or public figure, then probably yes! Or they stayed home, and they drew. GROSS: Huge story. GATES: I said, thank God. 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. 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. We started to roll. His PBS series "Finding Your Roots" returns for its ninth season in January, and his latest documentary series . Race is a social construction. 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 I showed up from Yale, and he became my mentor. Thank you so much for accepting this award. Now, Gates himself has put out a statement about the investigation, apologizing for not being transparent about his editing decisions, but in it that apology, he never says that the pressure from Affleck was the direct reason why he edited-out the slavery material. This is FRESH AIR. Nobody knows about their heritage, and that's been the biggest surprise.". And I gave it to her for birthday. There are no review sites like Yelp for genealogists, so it can be tough to know where to start. His dynasty lasted for centuries, continuing up until the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland at the end of the 16th century. GATES: But everyone who's in one of those databases has given some kind of permission. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. They begin their conversation by discussing how Henry's upbringing and the . 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? 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. He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed. After more than 500 years of skewed, racist, Euro-centric interpretations of African history and culture, Wonders of the African World with Henry Loius Gates Jr. was to be a bold step towards reclaiming the oft-overlooked and minimized splendor of African civilization. The Bondwomans Narrative by Hannah Crafts, edited by Henry Louis Gates, has just been published (Warner Books). The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. 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 . The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. More research time equals more discoveries, enabling the researchers to uncover those mind-blowing records fit for television. 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. Accuracy and availability may vary. I said, well, I've never met Donald Trump. Some genealogists even offer digital or e-book options! GATES: Well, I was on "The View." You might have breast cancer. 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." ", Gates Jr. said he'd originally focused on Black guests as African and African American studies were his "brand as it were.". GROSS: So you know your medical background and if you're GATES: Yeah. GROSS: But you had family that passed for white. Published February 4, 2023 at 1:25 PM AKST. But it's just not those two genetic lines. And TV was on kind of like the hearth in New England. I have a couple black friends - I went to Yale with Ben Carson and with Ben's wife. GATES: OK. He also wrote many non-fiction books on African American history, and won many awards in the process. I'm learning about things I didn't know anything about like Scotland, and the Black Watch, and the Royal Highlanders [a Scottish regiment].". One thing that your real-life book probably will not contain is photographs of your ancestors that youve never seen before. Beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, And Still I Rise: From Black Power to the White House explores the last half-century of the African American experience. 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. Well talk with Gates about the process of finding . CORNISH: As it turns out, Affleck asked the program not to include the fact that one of his ancestors owned slaves, and the information did not air. This is called an admixture test. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. Finding Your Roots is partnered with the genealogy company Ancestry.com, which recently found in a survey that most people (over 50%) know more about fictional TV families like the Roys in Succession, than they do about their own family history. GATES: I go, yeah, I got a brother who's a dentist, you know? I am descended from - on my father's side - from a white man who impregnated a black woman and, on my mother's side, from a white woman who was impregnated by a black man. They should also be a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). We wanted to see what more we could tell Ben Affleck about the roots of his family's interest in social justice. And my brother went off to dental school. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. CLIP. What percent would be from Europe? Copyright 2015 NPR. Season 9 of "Finding Your Roots" on PBS has seen actors Danny Trejo and Julia Roberts discover more about their family history. And deep down, I realized in retrospect that my desire to make films was probably born about that time. Jan 18, 2012. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and . And it's for my father. It's the damnedest thing I ever heard. They were buried next to each other. Henry Louis Gates Jr. addressing a class at Harvard in 1996. . A family history book can also be expensive, as weve covered, so its worth doing your research to find the best genealogist for your project. CORNISH: Meanwhile, the program "Finding Your Roots," what's been the fallout for the show? Abby Wolf (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2012), a collection of three decades of his work, was published in 2012. 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. The story of Niall of the Nine Hostages is already the stuff of legend, which has been passed on to countless Irish schoolchildren over the years. January 16, 2018. 2023 WNET. 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 . Of course, you can do that through mitochondrial DNA," he told Newsweek. "I've been in school since August 31 1956, when I started first grade, I've never left school," Gates Jr. said. So we knew he was Irish. GATES: Don't you? James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. The way to get a Finding Your Roots-style experience yourself is to hire a professional genealogist. GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. So the two men who took part in what is now an infamous confrontation outside the Gates home near Harvard this month are actually related through common Irish lineage -- one of the more extraordinary aspects of the incident that has sparked worldwide headlines. We'd spit in a test tube. Become a member of THIRTEEN ($5 monthly or $60 annually) and get access to THIRTEEN Passport as our thanks for your support. And then they'll make their decision on when they're going to schedule the third season and if they're going to do a fourth season. Does race exist? GATES: And they said, OK, we won't tell you. They spoke in front of an audience last May when Gates received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. Henry Louis Gates Jr. reveals that he and John Lithgow are DNA cousins. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. The Academy looks forward to presenting the award in person, when circumstances allow for a safe and celebratory occasion to honor the imagination and impact of Henry Louis Gates Jr. Update: The Academy presented the award at an in-person event in April 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Henry Louis Gates. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? But I saw that photograph and read her obituary on the day that we buried my father's father, Edward St. Lawrence Gates. As host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Gates tells celebrities about their family history. 825 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, WNET is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. His expertise and experience eventually led him to TV, where he started working as a contributor, narrator and host of a number of history shows, before he eventually worked on the PBS miniseries African American Lives. And at this point, I'd run over to my mother and say, Mama, I'll never pass for white, Mama. GATES: But I have an announcement to make GATES: For you. And I would watch this beautiful, brilliant goddess. But they came from someplace else. And he mustered in in Winchester, Va., on Christmas Day, 1778, and was mustered down the Continental Army in April of 1784. GATES: We know he was Irish from my DNA. GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. When we left off, Gates was talking about his own DNA mix. When I became a teenager, my father and I bonded. And I sat down. Again, for privacy reasons, genealogists are precluded from disclosing their clients names and contact information. Things change. 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