He also learned that one of his African ancestors includes a Yoruba man who was trafficked to America from Ouidah in the present-day Republic of Benin. "Her being a writer does help her plasticity of the brain because the brain does try to rewire itself," Dr. Henderson said. His writing includes pieces in The New York Times that defend rap music and an article in Sports Illustrated that criticizes Black youth culture for glorifying basketball over education. He also learned that one of his African ancestors includes a Yoruba man who was trafficked to America from Ouidah in present-day Republic of Benin. src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="", data-src="/web/show-photo.jpg?id=2525185&cache=false" In the second season of the program, Gates learned that he is part of a genetic subgroup that may be descended from or related to the fourth-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. Wife. WebMariel Iglesias and honoree Henry Louis Gates, Jr. attend the 2015 Statue Of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation's Gala In The Great Hall at Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration on May 19, 2015 in New York City. And remarkably, she's now able to talk about it. People who didnt vote. https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Ways-Looking-Black-Man/dp/0679776664/?tag=2022091-20, (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., takes us to twelve countries in s). Additionally, he is the Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. Subscribe to our email newsletter. This trip came 25 years after Gates worked at a hospital in Kilimatinde near Dodoma, Tanzania, as a 19-year-old pre-medical student at Yale University. Gates married Sharon Lynn Adams in 1979. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Rogers work. "Beer Summit" at the White House, July 30, 2009; from left to right: Gates, Crowley, and Obama. Quotations: In 2020, Gates received the 400 Years of African American History Commission's Distinguished 400Award. Gates was the host and co-producer of African American Lives (2006) and African American Lives 2 (2008) in which the lineage of more than a dozen notable African Americans was traced using genealogical and historical resources, as well as genealogical DNA testing. Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. (Note: Clotel (1853) by William Wells Brown is recognized as the first novel published by an African-American author, but it was both written and published in London.) His taxi driver attempted to help him gain entrance. The show's third season was postponed after it was discovered that actor Ben Affleck had persuaded Gates to omit information about his slave-owning ancestors. Obama eventually extended an invitation to both Gates and the officer involved to share a beer with him at the White House. This trip came 25 years after Gates worked at a hospital in Kilimatinde near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as a 19-year-old pre-medical student at Yale https://www.amazon.com/Life-Upon-These-Shores-1513-2008/dp/0307476855/?tag=2022091-20, (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presents a seminal volume of four). Unfortunately, his campaign rhetoric leant itself to xenophobic, anti-immigration, isolationist attitudes by addressing peoples fears. Just four months since her stroke, Elizabeth is back at home and back at work too. I have very close friends who voted for Donald Trump and they think the economy is going to be better and America is going to be stronger. src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="", data-src="/web/show-photo.jpg?id=2525145&cache=false" Secondly, that we're all related. As a prominent Black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study Black culture. WebHenry Louis Gates, Jr. is an American treasure. Father: Henry Louis Gates Sr. Sharon Lynn Adams was the wife of Henry Louis Gates Jr. Sharons Husband Henry Gates is an American literary critic, professor, historian, filmmaker, and Henry is currently married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. He is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. After his 2003 NEH lecture, Gates published his 2003 book, The Trials of Phillis Wheatley. While at Yale, Gates guided Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature at Yale with her thesis on Toni Morrison. / CBS. [31] His op-ed begins and ends with the observation that it is very difficult to decide whether or not to give reparations to the descendants of American slaves, whether they should receive compensation for the unpaid labor of their ancestors, and their lack of rights. Gates's critically acclaimed six-part PBS documentary series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, traced 500 years of African-American history to the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good Black people. Gates, his wife Sharon Adams, and his daughters, Maggie and Liza, completed the 3,000-mile train trip from Zimbabwe to Tanzania last August. Since 2012, he has hosted a PBS television series, entitled Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr..[24] The second season of the series, featuring 30 prominent guests across 10 episodes, with Gates as the narrator, interviewer, and genealogical investigator, aired on PBS in fall 2014. [38], In 1974, Gates learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. Asked by National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded: "I would say I'm a literary critic. But those friends, some of whom are black, say that he was a perfectly center of the road, cosmopolitan person. After his 2003 NEH lecture, Gates published his 2003 book, The Trials of Phillis Wheatley.In 1995 Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. "To take the family wasa very special approach to this kind of work," Shearman said. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. Who was the first black head of state in modern Western history? This is a democracy. "As a mediator between those advocating separatism and those believing in a Western canon, Gates has been criticized by both. "[32][33], Following a trip to China, Gates returned home to his residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard Square on July 16, 2009, only to find the front door jammed. Gates co-produces and hosts the genealogy show, "Finding Your Roots." [37] As of 2021, Gates is married to historian Dr. Marial Iglesias Utset. The work extended the application of the concept of "signifyin'" to the analysis of African-American works. PERSONAL: Born September 16, 1950, in Keyser, WV; son of Henry Louis and Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates; married Sharon Lynn Gates wrote, executive produced and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and NAACP Image Award. "Gates has argued that a separatist, Afrocentric education perpetuates racist stereotypes. Mother: Pauline Augusta Coleman Wife: Sharon Lynn Adams (m. 1979, two daughters) University: BA History, Yale University University: PhD In the series, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people. This trip came 25 years after Gates worked at a hospital in Kilimatinde near Dodoma, Tanzania, as a 19-year-old pre-medical student at Yale University. In introducing young readers to them, and to the resiliency of the African American people at times of progress and betrayal, Professor Gates shares a history that remains vitally relevant today. WebHenry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. 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. "For two solid months just together in the car and identifying objects -- just rebuilding her brain," Sharon said. Henry Louis Gates Ex-Wife: Sharon Adams April 6, 2023 [email protected] . Henry Louis Gates Jr. Career. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., takes us to twelve countries in search of Africa's magnificent past, the now neglected civilizations that in their day were as grand and sophisticated as any on the face of the earth. 301 Park Ave, New York, New York, United States. African "Beneath the return to the valley of the culture wars". Gates has joined the Sons of the American Revolution. While at Yale, Gates spent a year volunteering at a mission hospital in Tanzania and traveling throughout the African continent in order to complete the year-long non-academic requirement of his five-year bachelor program. September 2, 2010 / 10:43 AM Maybe its jet lag, or the cold and cough he nurses with lozenges, or the spate of holiday parties for which he and his wife, Sharon Adams, are famous. WebThe program documents a 3,000-mile journey Gates took through Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, with his then-wife Sharon Adams and daughters Liza and Meggie Gates. So how did Elizabeth know she had suffered from a stroke? On April 19, 1989, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. The confrontation resulted in Gates being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. In 1995, he received the Golden Plate Award of the. Having grown up in an African-American community, however, he identifies as Black. https://www.amazon.com/Tradition-Black-Atlantic-Critical-Diaspora/dp/0465014100/?tag=2022091-20, (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., gives us a sumptuously illustrate). The program documents a 3,000-mile journey Gates took through Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania, with his then-wife, Sharon Adams, and daughters, Liza and Meggie Gates. Some critics suggest that adding Black literature will diminish the value of the Western canon, while separatists say that Gates is too accommodating to the dominant white culture in his advocacy of integration of the canon. https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Louis-Gates-Jr-Figures/dp/B008UYTHVG/?tag=2022091-20, (From an American Book Award-winning author comes a pungen). In 2022, the Boston Public Library honored Gates with its Literary Lights Award. At Harvard, Gates teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, an endowed chair he was appointed to in 2006, and as a professor of English. He has insisted that black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism". Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for Black Americans. So she was severely disabled when we saw her initially," Dr. Galen Henderson, Director of Neuroscience at Brigham and Women's Hospital, explained. WebRelationships Henry Louis Gates Jr. was previously married to Sharon Lynn Adams (1979). He has his own story to tell.". Henry Louis Gates Jr. conducted research on Oprah Winfrey's genealogy, which he began in the 2006 African American Lives documentary. After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. [23] He had known of some European ancestry, but was surprised to learn the high proportion; he also learned that he was descended from John Redman, a mulatto veteran in New England of the American Revolutionary War. "We've collectively worked hard to build a center for Afro-American studies," Gates said. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (JULY 28, 2020): Today at the Virtual PBS Press Tour, PBS and WETA announced THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG will premiere February 16 and 23, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. Here, you will come face-to-face with the people and events of Reconstruction's noble democratic experiment, its tragic undermining, and the drawing of a new "color line" in the long Jim Crow era that followed. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for black Americans. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise, "Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Biography, Books, & Facts", "African American Lives The Past Is Another Country 2 4of4 YouTube", "Finding Your Roots: Decoding Our Past Through DNA", "The biggest brother: interview with Henry Louis Gates, black America's foremost intellectual", "Yale Afro-Am Chair Resigns After Remarks of Yale Pres", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. to continue at Harvard", "Henry Louis Gates is Wrong about African Involvement in the Slave Trade", Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, "Henry Louis Gates Jr. announced as editor-in-chief of the new Oxford Dictionary of African American English", "What It Means to Be Black in Latin America", "Ben Affleck's slave-owning ancestor 'censored' from genealogy show", "Ben Affleck Demanded PBS Suppress His Slave-Owning Ancestry", "Citing Ben Affleck's 'Improper Influence,' PBS Suspends 'Finding Your Roots', "PBS' 'Finding Your Roots' returning in January after Ben Affleck controversy", "African-American History Finally Gets Its Own AP ClassAnd Historians Say It's More Important Than Ever", "Instruction about race may be under siege across the US, but this course is empowering students at a Southern high school", "West Virginia Weslesyan College biography", "Black Studies' New Star: Henry Louis Gates Jr", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. On 'The Black Church' and His Own Bargain with Jesus", "MacArthur Fellos Program: Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Literary Critic | Class of June 1981", "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement", "Mister Jefferson and The Trials of Phillis Wheatley,", "2015 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winners Announced", "Henry Louis Gates Jr. Receives duPont Award for The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross", "Read Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Acceptance Speech for the duPont Award", "Chicago Tribune Announces 2019 Literary and Heartland Award Winners", "Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Named Don M. Randel Award Recipient | News | The Harvard Crimson", "Encarta Africana, the First Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture, Launches Today", Bibliography of Gates's publications and responses to it, African American National Biography Project, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Nonfiction, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Louis_Gates_Jr.&oldid=1151619136, African-American history of West Virginia, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows, Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Television personalities from West Virginia, African-American television personalities, Members of the American Philosophical Society, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2009, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Gates has received numerous honorary degrees, including a. Elizabeth Gates, joined by CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton shared her remarkable story of recovery with "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith. About Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a 72 year old American Author born on 16th Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. she said. Both would be just as important. WebFather: Henry Louis Gates, Sr. When asked by National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded: "I would say I'm a literary critic. Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers.Since 2012 he has hosted a PBS TV series, called Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TL, United Kingdom. src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="", data-src="/web/show-photo.jpg?id=2525199&cache=false" In their 52 years of marriage, the couple were able to give birth to 4 children. In 2020, Gates was honored with the Louis Stokes Community VisionaryAward. While at Yale, Gates guided Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature at Yale with her thesis on Toni Morrison. Some critics suggest that adding black literature will diminish the value of the Western canon, while separatists say that Gates is too accommodating to the dominant white culture in his advocacy of integration of the canon. In July 1976, Gates was promoted to the post of lecturer in Afro-American Studies, with the understanding that he would be promoted to assistant professor upon completion of his doctoral dissertation. Thats ridiculous. He also learned that one of his African ancestors includes a Yoruba man who was trafficked to America from Ouidah in the present-day Republic of Benin. If more people who agreed with us had voted, you wouldnt be asking this question. In 2022 and 2023, Gates was involved with the creation of AP African American Studies, the new college-level course created by College Board for high school students.[29][30]. [8] The first African American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Gates sailed on the Queen Elizabeth 2 for England, where he studied English literature at Clare College, Cambridge, and earned his Ph.D. degree. The series highlights the critical, often Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. At the age of 14 Gates was injured playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his hip, resulting in a slipped capital femoral epiphysis. 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Web- IMDb Mini Biography By: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Family (1) Spouse Marial Igiesias Utset (2021 - present) Sharon Lynn Adams ( 1 September 1979 - 1999) (divorced) (2 children) Gates wrote, executive produced and hosted the series, which earned the 2013 Peabody Award and NAACP Image Award. https://www.amazon.com/100-Amazing-Facts-About-Negro/dp/0307908712/?tag=2022091-20, (A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Ameri). That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. WebHenry Louis Gates Jr. Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. WebHe described his West Virginia childhood in his popular memoir, Colored People. Gates studied English literature at Clare College, Cambridge and earned his Doctor of Philosophy. "But then he put on a bandolier of bullets the size of lipstick tubes. In 2021, Gates received the MIPAD 100 Network's Most Influential People of African Descent Lifetime Achievement Award. What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry? As a literary historian committed to the preservation and study of historical texts, Gates has been integral to the Black Periodical Literature Project, a digital archive of Black newspapers and magazines created with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. As host of the PBS show Finding Your Roots and director of the Hutchins Center for African and Gates's web series, "Black History in Two Minutes (Or So)", which he executive produces with Robert F. Smith and Dyllan McGee, earned five Webby Awards, including for Best Podcast: Documentary and Best Video Series: Education & Discovery (2020), Best Podcast: Documentary and Best Social Video: Discovery & Education (2021) and Best Social Video: Discovery & Education (2022). Gates has such an eminent reputation", she said, "and so much gravitas. WebHenry Louis Gates: his birthday, what he did before fame, his family life, fun trivia facts, popularity rankings, and more. Henry Louis Gates Jr. received the Ellis Island Family Heritage Award at the "Gala in the Great Hall" held May 19, 2015. The arrest attracted national attention after the United States President Barack Obama declared that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting the 59-year-old Gates. The injury was misdiagnosed by a physician, who told Gates' mother that his problem was 'psychosomatic'. Gates was born in Keyser, West Virginia,[2] to Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (19161987) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c. 19132010). [19], In 1995, Gates presented a program in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="", data-src="/web/show-photo.jpg?id=2525142&cache=false" The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. As a black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon. WebHenry Louis Gates Jr. "I couldn't move at all it was horrible. Rather, he works for greater recognition of black works and their integration into a larger, pluralistic canon. Louis Gates Jr. likes to keep his personal life private hence information about his marital and dating life is not available as of 2020. So I know that moment of transcendence is real.". Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Oprah Winfrey at the Harvard University commencement ceremony before she received her honorary degree. Both would be just as important." WebGates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1950PERSONAL: Born September 16, 1950, in Keyser, WV; son of Henry Louis and Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates; married Sharon Lynn Adams (a As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions; he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to analyze texts and assess matters of identity politics. "She is a phenomenal woman and I am proud to be her mother," Sharon said. Throughout Tradition and the Black Atlantic, Gates shows that the culture wars have presented us with a surfeit of either/or tradition versus modernity; Eurocentrism versus Afrocentricism. The group spotted and approached one elephant ahead of it, but didn't see another in the brush to its left until it was in a position to charge them. Who was the first black president in North America? Crockett Jr., Stephen A. His writing includes pieces in The New York Times that defend rap music and an article in Sports Illustrated that criticizes black youth culture for glorifying basketball over education. [1] He reported:[39], "I had this spiritual event where it was like the top of my head opened up. "Up until that recent piece, people would have thought of him as someone who took a cautious and nuanced approach to questions like reparations. As a literary historian committed to the preservation and study of historical texts, Gates has been integral to the Black Periodical Literature Project, a digital archive of black newspapers and magazines created with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Gates graduated as valedictorian of his Piedmont High School class in 1968 and initially enrolled at Potomac State College of West Virginia University, transferred as an undergraduate to Yale College. "Signifyin'" refers to the significance of words that is based on context, and is accessible only to those who share the cultural values of a given speech community. Finding Your Roots resumed in January 2016. His childhood was spent It was astonishing. And I was exhilarated. The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller. [5], At the age of 14, Gates was injured playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his right hip, resulting in a slipped capital femoral epiphysis. Prabook is a registered trademark of World Biographical Encyclopedia, Inc. Watch her exclusive interview: First published on September 2, 2010 / 10:43 AM. In 1984, Gates was recruited by Cornell University with an offer of tenure; Gates asked Yale whether the university would match Cornell's offer, but they declined. Harvard College Accepts 3.41% of Applicants to Class of 2027. The real hazard of the trip, however, came when Gates, Adams and their guide searched for elephants in the wilderness. This idea still makes some people uncomfortable. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a Black mouth or a white mouth. In the first series, Gates learned that he has 50% European ancestry[22] and 50% African ancestry. Lolita Buckner Inniss, a professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, argued that notwithstanding African involvement as "abductors", it was Western slave-owners, as "captors", who perpetuated the practice even after the import trade was banned. 29 Oxford St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. JSTOR1208745. Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, considered Gates's emphasis on there being "little discussion" of African involvement in the slave trade to be unfounded, stating that "today, virtually every history of slavery and every American history textbook includes this information". He first married Sharon Lynn Adams in 1979 and welcomed two children prior to their 1999 divorce. Gates has joined the Sons of the American Revolution. In September 1995, Gates read a five-part abridgment (by Margaret Busby) of his memoir Colored People on BBC Radio 4. They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. Merivale St & Glenelg Street, South Brisbane QLD 4101, Australia. Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. He and Adams later divorced. By documenting and illuminating the sheer diversity of African American involvement in American history, society, politics, and culture, Gates bracingly disabuses us of the presumption of a single black experience. Life Upon These Shoresis a book of major importance, a breathtaking tour de force of the historical imagination. 35 (1): 212227. In October 1975 Henry Louis Gates Jr. was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="", data-src="/web/show-photo.jpg?id=2525236&cache=false" I wrote in 2006 about Gatess PBS series, African-American Lives. In this program, everything about America and whites is negative, everything about African-Americans is positive. WebGATES, Henry Louis, Jr. 1950-. In 2021, Gates received the PBS Beacon Award. Gates with his Peabody Award for his documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller.Asked by National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded: "I would say I'm a literary critic. The injury was misdiagnosed by a physician, who told Gates' mother that his problem was psychosomatic. WebSharon Lynn Adam was married to Henry Louis Gate Jr for two decades. As a prominent black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study black culture. Gates doesn't shy from pointing to the Black church's own failures and discrimination, including homophobia and sexism. In October 1975 he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. Gates serves as the chair for the Selection Committee for the Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Fellowship Program that is sponsored by the Fletcher Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Fletcher Asset Management. [4] He also learned that he has 50% European ancestry, including Irish forebears; he was surprised his European ancestry turned out to be so substantial. It is rooted in African-American literary criticism in the African-American vernacular tradition. Pointing us away from these facile dichotomies, Gates deftly combines rigorous scholarship with humor, looking back to the roots of cultural studies in order to map out its future course. [18] To build Harvard's visual, documentary, and literary archives of African-American texts, Gates arranged for the purchase of The Image of the Black in Western Art, a collection assembled by Dominique de Mnil in Houston. While many students spent the summer working in air-conditioned office buildings, DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. traversed eastern Africa with a BBC camera crew at his heels. [36] They had two daughters together before they divorced in 1999. src="" alt="" class="gallery-slider__content__img" height="". They had two daughters and later divorced. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin'" to analysis of African-American works. But the decision to stay was difficult. Author Herb Boyd, who teaches African and African-American history at the College of New Rochelle and City College, CUNY, argued that despite the complicity of African monarchs in the Atlantic slave trade, the United States "was the greatest beneficiary, and thus should be the main compensator". This is how our country works. He has insisted that Black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the Black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism". Before her stroke, Elizabeth worked as a writer for the popular website "The Daily Beast," a career -- doctor's believe -- may have helped her recover even faster.