Gates tried to provide the basis on which to judge black literary works, defining their own cultural aesthetic, in his seminal work The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, a 1989 American Book Award winner. Sharon Lynn Adams is a mom of two who has written a book that provides practical advice on what it means to be a good mother today. Gates assembled a team of dedicated intellectuals who traveled through 12 African countries over a period of one year, gathering and examining evidence of past African cultures. Microsoft produced a CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia, Encarta Africana and Perseus published the print version, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience. Thank you so much for accepting this award. The most subtle and pernicious form of racism against blacks [is] doubt about our intellectual capacities, he explained to Maurice Berger in Art in America. "I think what transpired was unfortunate and I think . Gates tried to provide the basis on which to judge African-American literary works, defining a black cultural aesthetic in his seminal work The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Anglo-American regional culture is simply not universal. GATES: admixture, I'm 50 percent sub-Saharan African and 50 percent European and virtually no Native American ancestry, which really pisses my family off. Years later Gates wrote in an article for the New York Times that overachiever designated a sort of pathology: the overstraining of your natural capacity. As a result of the misdiagnosis, Gatess right leg is more than two inches shorter than his left. Rob Nagel and Christine Miner Minderovic. Created television series The Image of the Black in the Western Imagination, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1982. I'm going to be black. Time, London Bureau, staff correspondent, 1973-75; American Cyanamid Co., public relations representative, 1975; Yale University, New Haven, CT, lecturer, 1976-79, assistant professor of English, 1979-84, director of department of undergraduate Afro-American studies, 1979-85, associate professor of English, 1984-85; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, professor of English and African Studies, 1985-90, W.E.B. Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 5, 2008. (With William L. Andrews) The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives, Counterpoint Civitas, 1999. More recently, Rufo has expanded his focus to critical race theory in education. Most of the 11 examples he cites of this supposed indoctrination revolve around diversity trainings that, broadly speaking, implicated teachers in white supremacy. "It's as ridiculous as if someone said I couldn't appreciate [writer William] Shakespeare because I'm not Anglo-Saxon. Contemporary Black Biography. Gates's historical detective work continued with the African American Lives series of television specials and books. Microsoft produced a CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia, Encarta Africana and Perseus published the print version, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience. The Trials of Phyllis Wheatley: America's First Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers, Basic Civitas Books, 2003. So obviously rape or, at best, cajoled sexuality was the cause, but there are exceptions. And I don't know if that ruined your sports career forever, but it affected your leg forever. Davis, Timothy, "Who Was Hannah Crafts?," Salon, April 24, 2002, http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2002/04/24/bondwoman/index.html (accessed April 14, 2008). His scholarly publication, The Signifying Monkey, won the American Book Award in 1989. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/gates-henry-louis-jr-1950-0, Nagel, Rob; Minderovic, Christine "Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 1950 September 2, 2010 / 10:43 AM / CBS. You know, we used to say tribe, but now that's not politically correct - so the Yoruba ethnic group in Western Nigeria. From this union were born two daughters Maggie Gates and Liza Gates. I think you know where I'm heading here. You might have breast cancer. And it turned out - my father used to say, you know, your mother's family is really distinguished, too? This is FRESH AIR. His dynasty lasted for centuries, continuing up until the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland at the end of the 16th century. GATES: Yeah. The novel was originally published in 1859 but was immediately ignored, only to later be labeled the work of a white man. GROSS: Is that too personal? Spurred on by the belief of black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers that it is "the heritage of the mother that the African-American male must regain as an aspect of his own personhoodthe power of yes to the female within," as Gates quoted Spillers in the New York Times Book Review, he focused on the literary accomplishments of black women from that period, culminating in his editing the thirty-volume Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, published in 1988. James Crowley is on the horizon. Two men at the center of the controversy are linked by their Irish heritage. ." "If we relinquish the ideal of America as a plural nation, we've abandoned the very experiment America represents. GATES: I did an episode with Oprah and Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. Generated by Wordfence at Mon, 1 May 2023 20:33:17 GMT.Your computer's time: document.write(new Date().toUTCString());. The supposedly fearless leader battled the English, the Scots, the French and even the Romans, and struck fear into the heart of his enemies. Black work cannot be appreciated or criticized on the basis of a Western cultural aesthetic. And when they analyzed my mitochondrial DNA, it went to England. As host of the PBS show "Finding Your Roots" and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard . As soon as the Civil War ended, they became common law husband and wife GATES: Which was illegal in Mississippi. And your driver was helping you - well, he was shoving his shoulder against the door trying to open it. And at this point, I'd run over to my mother and say, Mama, I'll never pass for white, Mama. They lived together. And she and Claudette Colbert are both unmarried mothers. Selected awards: Carnegie Foundation fellowship for Africa, 1970-71; National Endowment for the Humanities, 1980-86; A. Whitney Griswold fellowship, 1980; Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, 1981 and 1990; Yale Afro-American teaching prize, 1983; Amer Book Award and Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Race Relations, 1989; Best New Journal the Year award (in the humanities and the social sciences), Assn of Publishers, 1992; elected to the Amer Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993; Heartland Prize for Nonfiction 1994; Humanities Award, WV Humanities Council, 1995; Distinguished Editorial Achievement, Critical inquiry, 1996; W.D. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, Reed, Ishmael 1938 GROSS: And it was reported as if it was a break-in, and a police officer came and arrested you. He told Berger in Art in America that there must be "systems that account for the full complexity of American art, music, and literaturein all their multicolored strains. In 1981 the MacArthur Foundation recognized him as one of 21 gifted individuals, giving him a five-year grant totaling $150,000. AfricanDNA's genealogy services are also incorporated in The Root, an online magazine which aims to be "Slate for black readers," and on which Gates serves as editor-in-chief. Now she was born in 1819; died in 1888. Gates does not call for the precedence of black culture over its Western counterpart. It's a lot of data to process. GATES: That's true. And the DNA tests we were doing at that time - when they analyzed my Y DNA, it went to Ireland. Contemporary Black Biography. After having graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a degree in history, Gates won fellowships to study at the Clare College of Cambridge University in England. Consultant to Menil Foundation. YmNhZjE4NjQ1YzBmMDAyNzE1Y2I3NzQyYjFhM2YwZWUzOTdiZGE1ZTcxZmFl GATES: And then there was "The Late Late Show." GROSS: And you got this information from the 1870 census. Rob Nagel, Christine Miner Minderovic, and Derek Jacques. She was fascinated by the teachings of Malcolm X but also wanted her sons to be able to work and live within an integrated society. 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. If it is illegal in Florida to teach about systemic racism, then aspects of the Holocaust relevant for young Americans go untaught., In The Times, a group of writers across the political spectrum cast the threat in existential terms. Last month, the Florida Department of Education voted to restrict what public-school children can learn about the past. Not all U.S. presidents are missed once they leave the White House. According to our records, Sharon Lynn Adams is possibly single. Politics: Democrat. GROSS: Terry Gross interviewed Henry Louis Gates last May when he was in Philadelphia to accept the WHYY Lifelong Learning Award. In addition to editing The Norton Anthology of African American Literature in 1996, Gates coedited many other works, including The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives (1999), a collection of ten stories. Yeah. The fifth season of "Finding Your Roots" is currently showing on PBS. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. And when this little girl's passing for - she passes for white and breaks her mother's heart. GROSS: But you also wanted to know who were your African ancestors. She has since taken this philosophy and created this book. They had kids, and they're buried next to each other. More money was consequently infused into the project, which exhumed nineteenth-century black literary works buried in periodicals. Contemporary Black Biography. ODViM2NmOGJjOWZjMDhmYzYzNDZhOGViMTUyMjA2MjkwZDgxODIxMzZkZmY3 Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sharon Lynn Adams had a relationship from 1979 to 1979. He is most recognized for his extensive research of African-American history and literature, and for developing and expanding the African-American studies program at Harvard University. And it is in the black vernacular tradition that Gates locates the true black literary criticism. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Contemporary Black Biography. Henry Louis Gates Born into a poor family in West Virginia, he went on to study at Yale and became one of the US's leading African-American academics. Sharon Lynn Adams [Henry Louis Gates Ex-Wife] Before & After. Given Gate's commitment to elevating the works and identities of black Americans, some may be surprised to find out that in 1973 he married a white woman named Sharon Lynn Adams. In Black Literature and Literary Theory, published in 1984 and edited by Gates, he attacked the notion of the traditional, Eurocentric literary canon by proposing the establishment of a black literary canon. And she throws herself on the casket. 27 Apr. Du Bois Professor of Literature, 1988-90; Duke University, Durham, NC, John Spenser Bassett Professor of English, 1990-91; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, W.E.B. All rights reserved. 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? 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. M2ZkOGJiZTQ2Yzc1YWM1ZjE4OGQyMWU2ZGExMGJkNzE5NjI3Yzk4YTFiNjY4 Gates has distinguished himself as an effective fundraiser, a prolific writer and editor of books and articles, a spokesperson for cultural diversity, reparations, and affirmative action, and as the host of a six-part BBC/PBS television series, Wonders of the African World. 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 wanted to be from them. Another impressive educational project was his six-part miniseries for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), The Wonders of the African World. . GATES: And then when they did my admixture, I'm 50 percent sub-Saharan African and 50 percent European and virtually no Native American ancestry, which really pisses my family off. But the ancestry is being investigated against the will of the people being outed. Race is a social construction. GATES, Henry Louis, Jr. 1950-PERSONAL: Born September 16, 1950, in Keyser, WV; son of Henry Louis and Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates; married Sharon Lynn Adams (a potter), September 1, 1979; children: Maude Augusta Adams, Elizabeth Helen-Claire. Associated With. Where did this movement come from, and what are the underlying disputes? GROSS: I saw his picture in the obituary. Teacher, scholar, and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was born in Keyser, West Virginia. Library Journal, November 1, 1990; February 1, 1991; July 1991; July, 2002. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Bogus theories of sun and ice people, and the individual scapegoating of other ethnic groups, only resurrects the worst of 19th-century racist pseudosciencewhich too many of the pharaohs of Afrocentrism have accepted without realizing, Gates explained in Newsweek. GROSS: OK. The First Amendment will not, true enough, secure us substantive liberties, but neither will its abrogation, he wrote, while also crediting critical race theorists with helping to reinvigorate the debate about freedom of expression., Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, has also critiqued the conception of progress as a story of white accommodation, an idea developed by another major critical race theorist, Derrick Bell. DuBois Professor of the Humanities, 1991, chair of department of African-American Studies, 1991.Created television series The Image of the Black in the Western Imagination, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1982. Floridas education system exists to create opportunity for our children. We know that BRCA1, BRCA2 - they're genetic. In black vernacular, Signifying is a sign that words cannot be trusted, that even the most literal utterance allows room for interpretation, that language is both carnival and minefield., Parody and allusion, prevalent in African myths and African-American folktales, are intimate forms of this black vernacular verbal play, and the interpretive act is endless. Silver, Mary, "African American National Biography Provides Intellectual Feast," Epoch Times, February 27, 2008, http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-2-27/66654.html (accessed April 14, 2008). He also cites a California lesson plan for third graders in which students were asked to rank themselves according to their privilege. Sharon Lynn Adams in her latest album The Heartland Sessions was released in September 20th 2015 by independent record label, Rock. And I hope they are. Retrieved April 27, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/gates-henry-louis-jr, Teacher, scholar, and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was born in Keyser, West Virginia. They were married for twenty years. Were helping to create a new cultural consciousness, one thats pluralistic and diverse.. ." He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. After a break, he'll talk about his childhood and about how DNA evidence demonstrates there's no such thing as racial purity. And my Y DNA, which is - comes in an unbroken chain, descends from this Irishman. I sort of hope they do, she added. In the early 1970s, Gates, along with some colleagues, made a pact to fulfil a dream of the late W.E.B. And the obituary said, died this day in Cumberland, Md., January 6, 1888; Aunt Jane Gates, an estimable colored woman. Yet others believe that the restrictions sweeping the country are so dangerous that opposing them must be their first priority. It's a joke. He was 97, as you said. GATES: That was one of the happiest days of my life when my brother went to dental school. GROSS: When you were 14, you had a football injury. And they got the brothers in uniforms with swords and stuff coming out of the church with this sad, black church music. It measures your ancestry back 500 years approximately. They are stubborn. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1950-PERSONAL: Born September 16, 1950, in Keyser, WV; son of Henry Louis and Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates; married Sharon Lynn Adams (a . The novel was originally published in 1859 but was ignored and later labeled the work of a white man. -----BEGIN REPORT----- Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies, Harvard University, 104 Mt. Black Is the Color of the Cosmos: Charles T. Daviss Essays on Black Literature and Culture, 1942-1981, Garland Publishing, 1982. And she burst into tears because she used to read me that book all the time. And the reason I wanted to be a writer is that my mother wrote so beautifully and read so beautifully. Jet, November 5, 1990; October 25, 1999; August 27, 2000; September 25, 2000; January 21, 2002. GATES: Terry Gross speechless - first time in 35 years. GROSS: Was that reflected in the way you wanted to say goodbye to your father at the funeral? ", It has been Gates's critical approach, the definition of a black literary theory, that has attracted the most attention, both favorable and unfavorable. NWRlMWYzZjAzZjMzYzcyNWM1M2ZlMTFiNzMxZjg1ZDQ3Y2IzODdmMjQ0MWYy But I also watched TV. 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. He earned his B.A. That's not the way it was. In 2004 he co-edited African American Lives. Sharon M. Adams, 59, passed away Aug. 19. Coming up, journalist Brian Palmer talks about how slavery and the Civil War are described at Confederate historic sites in the South. -----END REPORT-----. Police arrested Gates on July 16 on charges of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. ." Its as ridiculous as if someone said I couldnt appreciate [writer William] Shakespeare because Im not Anglo-Saxon. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. "Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. (Parents : Edward Elwyn Adams 1921-1999 & Doris Evelyn Lee 1928-2018), divorced in 1999. GATES: And we - they only put - remember "The Late Show"?
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