Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an author, documentary filmmaker, essayist, and literary critic. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. As of 2014, he has written seventeen books and created thirteen documentary films and film series.

DNA testing shows an admixture of 60% European, 34% African, and 6% Asian (1), and that his family descends from the Yoruba nation in the country of Benin. (2).

From "Native Sons of Liberty" By HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr. The New York Times, August 6, 2006:

"I have been obsessed with my family tree since I was a boy. My grandfather, Edward Gates, died in 1960, when I was 10. After his burial at Rose Hill Cemetery in Cumberland, Md. — Gateses have been buried there since 1888 — my father showed me my grandfather’s scrapbooks. There, buried in those yellowing pages of newsprint, was an obituary, the obituary, to my astonishment, of our matriarch, a midwife and former slave named Jane Gates. “An estimable colored woman,” the obituary said."

Citations

1. Staff writers (September 14, 2006). "Sons of American Revolution welcome Gates". The Harvard University Gazette.
2. "African American Lives The Past Is Another Country 2 4of4 - YouTube". youtube.com

Links

1. Wikipedia
2. imdb
3. the Root
4. Encyclopedia.com
5. PBS
6. Hutchins Center for African & African American Research