The tale, as I later discovered, is a tangled one. The genealogist should walk you through the research process. And she throws herself on the casket. Nobody knows about their heritage, and that's been the biggest surprise.". NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Be sure to watch Finding Your Roots on PBS on Tuesday nights! The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. By Emily Guskin, Mahvish Shahid Khan and Amy Mitchell. A plaque was unveiled in Cambridge in honour of Crummell and two other black pioneers: Gloria Carpenter . Also, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. GATES: The Gateses all looked - my father looked white. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And she invents this pancake mix, and they become fabulously wealthy. Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy. And my grandfather was so white, we called him Casper behind his back. Things change. And they would be published in the newspaper. GATES: Now, we don't do blood anymore, right? To put it simply, Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a man who knows his history, and if knowledge is power, he is a powerful man indeed. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Published February 4, 2023 at 1:25 PM AKST. And the last thing I did before I went to bed was - we always had a desk in our bedrooms and had a bookcase. GATES: Well, I was on "The View." That indicates that they do them regularly, which is a positive sign. So lets look at some numbers! But I think that one of the mottos of finding your roots is that there is no such thing as racial purity, that these people who have fantasies, these white supremacists, of this Aryan brotherhood, you know, this Aryan heritage that is pure and unsullied and untainted, that they're living in a dream world. I have the Ui Neil Haplotype. Wrong username or password. 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. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Over the course of his many years hosting history and genealogy shows on PBS, scholar and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. has guided dozens of people through emotional deep dives into their family histories, unearthed with the help of DNA and a team of expert . "My favorite class was an ancient history class in the fifth grade when I was 10 years old. 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 she's the cook for Claudette Colbert. 1104, certified through 10 November 2023. guide for finding a professional genealogist. It doesn't exist. This is called an admixture test. GROSS: Huge story. Famed Harvard University Professor Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr. got a major surprise when he started researching his own ancestry - in his . This will enable them to allocate more time towards researching that individual. And then he'd - and I read quite a lot. Weaving together stories of soldiers, settlers, immigrants and entrepreneurs, Gates travels from World War I battlefields to Civil War prison camps to America's most infamous . Gates Jr. added, "Oprah just broke down and cried in the middle of the shoot. A research report walks you through the documents found, what those documents say and mean, and the conclusions that the genealogist has drawn about your family. We know that BRCA1, BRCA2 - they're genetic. Finding Your Roots debuted on PBS on March 25, 2012, and has now been running for nine seasons. On the show, they usually find photographs by contacting the guests relatives or distant cousins. There is also the question of What is exhaustive? when it comes to family tree research. Gates has said back then that he and the producers decided not to include the information about Affleck's slave-owning history because they focused on other stuff they found more interesting about his family history. The Life Summary of Henry Louis. Author, Journalist, Industrialist, Businessman, American filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Born on September 16, 1950 It is the first known work of its kind and has great historical and literary significance. And I loved the news. GATES: Right after the Beer Summit, it all went away. You've been known to sing on the set of "Finding Your Roots.". January 16, 2018. They flew him in from San Francisco. And she would stand up and read their obituary, their eulogy. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies. GROSS: I've interviewed many people over the years. Carlos Figueroa. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A new, four-part PBS series aspires to showcase the beauty, joy and achievements of the Black community. Biology matters. If we apply those percentages to the last . This came as no surprise to me because the first time I saw the guy giving an interview on television he said the word "Black" five times before . Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an author, documentary filmmaker, essayist, and literary critic. Not sure which channel that is? And that is the lesson of "Finding Your Roots. When I became a teenager, my father and I bonded. 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 is one of many famous African-Americans with Irish heritage, including President Barack Obama and award-winning author Alice Walker. 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. GROSS: But it's making me think of how much death figured into your formative thoughts - the death of your grandfather, which led you to see the picture of your great-great-grandmother, everybody's deaths through your mother memorialized in those obituaries. James Crowley, who was responding to a 911 caller's report of men breaking and entering the residence. Off. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and . And my mother used to write the eulogies, the obituaries for all the black people in the Potomac Valley, where I grew up. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed. It's beautiful. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. Henry Louis Gates Jr. told CBS News that marking Juneteenth as a federal holiday was a long time coming.#cbsnews #juneteenth CBS News Streaming Network is th. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? Henry Louis Gates Jr. was born on 16 September, 1950 in Keyser, West Virginia, United States, is an American professor. GATES: That's true. We started to roll. And that night - and then daddy showed my brother and me, Dr. Paul Gates now, chief of dentistry at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital GATES: Well, it's the spirit of my mother. When it came to the bedroom, it seems that Niall of the Nine Hostages was even more fearless and energetic than he was on the battlefield. And then you see this white girl next to Claudette Colbert. And I was in the hospital for six weeks. As we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King today, we're going to listen to an interview Terry recorded with historian Henry Louis Gates. They had kids, and they're buried next to each other. My father loved sports, and I didn't care about sports that much. Old photographs are usually kept in families and passed down through the generations, so family albums and attics are the most logical place to look for them. GATES: Very close to them, yeah, particularly to my mother. 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. This is FRESH AIR. Last year, Gates uncovered a manuscript of a novel purportedly written in the 1850s by an African American woman who had been a slave. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. She was quite a lady. GATES: He wasn't even out the door, and I moved into his bedroom. 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 . But this week, Gates's wish came true. DAVIES: Henry Louis Gates speaking with Terry Gross in May of last year. So we knew he was Irish. So, to summarize, you probably cant hire Henry Louis Gates Jr. himself, but you can get a similar work product from a qualified professional genealogist. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. So then I became close to them but in two completely different ways. But you know what? The supposedly fearless leader battled the English, the Scots, the French and even the Romans, and struck fear into the heart of his enemies. She loved nicknames (my brother Paul Edward is Rocky). You don't get $1,400 by saving your nickels and dimes as a slave, right? 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. War, Thinking, Civilization. My mother was a seamstress, as you know. Tax ID: 26-2810489. Popular ancestry show Finding Your Roots is deep into its ninth season but host Henry Louis Gates Jr. admits he's "surprised" the show has worked so well with white people included. Eric Deggans, what does that mean? They - but you're absolutely right. So I'm out there. You can say on the one hand that race is a social construction. That's the way it is. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. GATES: I said, thank God. 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? And at this point, I'd run over to my mother and say, Mama, I'll never pass for white, Mama. The video will be available shortly. I'm Dave Davies This is FRESH AIR. He also wrote many non-fiction books on African American history, and won many awards in the process. If youve enjoyed this blog post, you can hire me to create your family history book or research report. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The differences perhaps point to different social and cultural histories within the south.". And I hope they are. And we're listening to Terry's interview with Henry Louis Gates. I also cover the pros and cons of hiring an individual genealogist vs. a large company for your project, in case that interests you. And we knew the name of his great-great-grandmother and the name of this white man. If you dislike a persons writing style, or if you have difficulty understanding what theyre saying, its probably not a good idea to hire them to write a 100-page book for you. And the first thing they said was, you don't have any of the genes that's going to give you Alzheimer's. CORNISH: And they said that they found the show's producers violated PBS standards by failing to shield the creative and editorial process from improper influence. I hope you never come back, you know? They should also be a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). So it was just the two of us and my mom, right? Variety has an exclusive first look at Gates' appearance; scroll down for [] They know about their heritage.' **This blog post was updated on 6 April 2022**So, youve been watching the amazing stories about celebrities family histories on the TV show Finding Your Roots on PBS, and after a few episodes, youve started to wonder, Can Henry Louis Gates research my family tree?. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. 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. Henry Louis Gates Jr., 72, is a professor, historian and documentary filmmaker. So we went - my father showed us that picture and that obituary, and we went home. GROSS: It's mind-boggling. Historian and African American Studies professor Gates Jr. has hosted a number of genealogy shows in the past, but Finding Your Roots on PBS has proved his most popular yet. GROSS: Is that too personal? In his 2016 book, Finding Your Roots, Season 2: The Official Companion to the PBS Series, and in an article at The Huffington Post, Henry wrote that his 23andme DNA test results state his genetic ancestry to be: *50.1% European. I love my mother, and I love my nickname. 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. So PBS started an internal investigation to figure out what happened, and then on Wednesday they issued their findings. Gates accused the arresting officer, who is white, of . said Henry Louis Gates Jr. "Encarta Africana 2000 is a captivating and engaging resource that can educate students of all ages." Within its 3,600 articles, the latest version includes new information and multimedia features that will allow students to learn even more about African culture and history. One thing they dont cover on Finding Your Roots is how much it would cost to get a similar experience in real life. And my father would just make up stories and tell my brother and me. After that, everything stopped. It's incredible that the mystery to my family tree - I'm looking toward Africa, and it was 18 miles away in Moorefield, W.Va., County Courthouse. After living in Lexington, Mass., following the death of his wife, Mr. Gates had resided for the past several years at the. 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. Research reports are great! Members get extended access to PBS video on demand and more. Combining family tree records with DNA genealogy technology, he initially pitched the show as "Alex Haley in a test tube" (Haley was the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family). (These numbers have been updated since this post was written to reflect current market rates.) 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 . I can do it. 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. On the PBS series, Gates visits Trinity College to find his roots, and says to the genealogist, "Do I look like an Irishman to you? He grew up in neighboring Piedmont. BEN AFFLECK: That's my grandmother, Liz. And I don't know if that ruined your sports career forever, but it affected your leg forever. GATES: Our TV - when we woke up, the TV was on, and nobody ever turned it off until you went to sleep. And she burst into tears because she used to read me that book all the time. For $50,000, they sequenced my father, me and then 12 of the guests who were in "Faces Of America" - not a full genome but a dense genotyping. But one story not told to most Irish elementary schoolchildren was of Niall's prolificacy. "My idea was that I would reveal where in Africa, on a guest mother's mother's line, they had hailed from. Many other genealogists have not worked on Finding Your Roots, but are massively talented and can help you learn more about your family history, similar to the way guests do on the show. "I'm descended from a white man, he says. I go, goodbye. in England and in the U.S. is the use of DNA. Listen 9:01. Henry Louis Gates Jr. reveals that he and John Lithgow are DNA cousins. GROSS: When you were 14, you had a football injury. GATES: Yeah, I was 15 years old. He co-wrote Lincoln on Race and Slavery, with Donald Yacovone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 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. I mean, like, my - I'm second-generation American. A report is a little more nitty gritty than a book, sort of like how understanding the mechanics of an engine will help you understand what makes a car run. They spoke in front of an audience last May when Gates received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award. Some projects take literally years to complete. It was a horrible, horrible thing. Yeah. Genealogy is one of those things that you can keep doing forever, so itll be up to you, your genealogist, and your budget to determine a good stopping point for your project. He has chaired Harvard University's department of Afro-American Studies for many years. And our family - my cousin, Johnny Gates (ph), still owns that house to this day. It is astonishing," he says, "that I have a kinship with someone (Niall of the Nine Hostages) dating back to the fourth century A.D.". Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia, to Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c.1913-2010) and his wife Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (1916-1987). 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. John Lithgow and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. are DNA cousins! Reader, ed. Again, for privacy reasons, genealogists are precluded from disclosing their clients names and contact information. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. S9 E2 - 52m 11s. But then President Obama called you both together. Henry Louis Gates is an American literary critic, historian, professor, filmmaker, and public intellectual. And he, and you, the officer and Joe Biden sat down, had a beer or two. And he'd make a couple - a move. My momma called me Skippy from the time I was born. GROSS: OK. His PBS series "Finding Your Roots" returns for its ninth season in January, and his latest documentary series . It was just misdiagnosed. And one of the, you know, wonderful people on "The View" said did I think that Donald Trump is racist. 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 . They want to see how that pans out as they do the show. One episode this season explores Gates' own DNA and family history. (Preston Crawley) "I love being in Utah because I love genealogy," Henry Louis Gates Jr. said as he addressed BYU . GROSS: OK. I'm going to be black. (Well cover how to hire a genealogist later in this blog post.). Legend has it that it was Niall of the Nine Hostages who, on a raid in Wales, captured a young slave and brought him to Ireland. And so then they came in - this is a big deal back in 2008. Kids don't even know what they are anymore, but everybody here does. Race is a social construction. GATES: Well, the average African-American GATES: The average African-American is 24 percent European. Henry Louis Gates. And I was shocked by that. The latest episode of Finding Your Roots airs on Tuesday January 31, and features 76-year-old Scottish actor Brian Cox. So, your real-life family history book might resemble a novel or coffee-table book, rather than a scrapbook like those on the program. GROSS: I saw his picture in the obituary. Related Links. So to me, it leaves open a question of whether or not letting Affleck lobby Gates was the problem or having him actually pressure them and get them to change the material was the problem. Of what is exhaustive make a couple - a move npr contractor nicknames ( my Paul... Later discovered, is a social construction, historian and documentary filmmaker 10 years old journalist! 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'S interview with henry Louis Gates, Jr. a new, four-part PBS series aspires showcase... Big deal back in 2008 responding to a 911 caller & # x27 ; s wish came true of!