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Elizabeth Alexander and a Freed Slave's Journey of a Lifetime
By Henry Louis Gates Jr. Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts, based on the PBS series Faces of America, is the latest book from Henry Louis Gates Jr., the series’ host and The Root’s editor-in-chief. In it, Gates applies a global perspective to examine the roots and identities of 12 celebrated…
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Malcolm Gladwell's Elusive Roots
Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts, based on the PBS series Faces of America, is the latest book from Henry Louis Gates Jr., the series’ host and The Root’s editor-in-chief. In it, Gates applies a global perspective to examine the roots and identities of 12 celebrated Americans of diverse backgrounds, from…
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A Final Act for the Debate Over Reparations
Cambridge, Mass. THANKS to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics – the fact that he is African-American and president – Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for…
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Who's Your (Irish) Daddy?
In one of my favorite Malcolm X speeches, the brilliant rhetorician asks, “What’s your name? It isn’t Smith or Jones or Bunche [as in Ralph] or Powell [as in Adam Clayton; Malcolm is playing the dozens here!]. They don’t have those kinds of names where we come from! What’s your name?” It might have shocked…
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Celebrating Candomblé in Bahia
When the 10.8 million African slaves disembarked from the hell-hole of the slave ships of the Middle Passage, they discovered that they had not sailed alone. In spite of the horrendous conditions onboard ship (15 percent of their countrymen died en route), many aspects of their various African heritages and cultures managed to survive with…
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The Curse on Haiti
According to Pat Robertson, when the Haitian slaves were battling the French for their freedom, they “swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘we will serve you if you will get us free from the French’… so the devil said ‘OK, it’s a deal,’ and they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and…
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The 2000s: The Erasure of Boundaries
What characterizes “The Decade from Hell,” as Time magazine recently called it? Well, terrorism and the fear of random, irrational terrorist attacks; war and rumors of war, most certainly; the consciousness of economic and environmental vulnerability, in a combination experienced to such a degree by no previous generation of our countrymen; the transformation of the…
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'An Accident of Time and Place'
I would like to applaud President Obama for bringing Sergeant Crowley, me and our families together. I would also like to thank the President for welcoming my father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., who for most of his life has been a Republican! My dad turned 96 this past June, and the fact that he worked…
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L'Enfant Terrible of Black Cinema
WATCH VIDEO of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’ recent interview with Spike Lee. I FIRST INTERVIEWED Spike Lee in the spring of 1991 in his office at 40 Acres and a Mule Productions, located in the heart of the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. I was in the process of moving from Duke to Harvard to…
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Conversations with Henry Louis Gates Jr.
A CONVERSATION WITH RUBY DEE: Looking back at 50 years of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ BUSH, THE LINCOLN BEDROOM AND ME: A White House tour from former President Bush; how his presidency compared to Lincoln’s. LOOKING FOR LINCOLN: How “The Great Emancipator” used his political instincts and powerful oratory to co-opt his rivals TOUR OF ECHOES: Recalling the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
