Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, In His Own Words

At Local Theater Company, we are anxiously counting down the days until our next Living Room Local with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Professor Gates takes on many roles, from scholar and educator to historian and storyteller, and these roles often intertwine in his work. There is no better way to learn about Professor Gates, as a scholar and as a fellow human and American, than by reading his own words. The following statements are from Professor Gates, from his television series and books, that highlight a few of his ideas and beliefs. 

In a time of great division and opposition, Professor Gates is aware of the fact that, as humans, we are more alike than we are different. This idea is a major force behind Gates’ series, Finding Your Roots: “I am trying to deconstruct notions of racial purity. There is no racial purity. We are all diverse. Showing diversity is important to me politically, and insofar as we can achieve that, our series has an educational value for the larger country, particularly at a time when we’re at Redemption redux.”

Source: “Henry Louis Gates Jr. on What Really Happened at Obama’s ‘Beer Summit’” New York Times, February 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/03/magazine/henry-louis-gates-jr-interview.html

In discussing his newest PBS special, The Black Church, Professor Gates highlights the extent to which the Black church serves as a central piece of Black American culture, history, and identity: "This is the story and song our ancestors bequeathed to us, and it comes at a time in our country when the very things they struggled and died for—faith and freedom, justice and equality, democracy and grace—all are on the line. No social institution in the Black community is more central and important than the Black church.”

Source: “PBS and WETA Announce THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG” PBS, July 2020 https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/pbs-and-weta-announce-new-documentary-series-from-dr-henry-louis-gates-jr-the-black-church-this-is-our-story-this-is-our-song-to-air-february-16-and-23-2021-at-900-pm-et/

In his 1993 novel, Gates asserts the reality of our vastly multicultural world: “For whatever the outcome of the culture wars in the academy, the world we live in is multicultural already. Mixing and hybridity are the rule, not the exception.”

Source: Loose Canons : Notes on the Culture Wars, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1993. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucb/detail.action?docID=241239.

Not only did the colonization of African people by white Europeans lead to the institution of slavery and centuries of racial injustice, but colonization has also completely erased centuries of African culture and history. Professor Gates is a scholar determined to uncover this history that has been so wrongfully washed away: “Africa—contrary to myths of isolation and stagnation—has been embedded in the world and the world embedded in Africa. There was nothing empty or blank about it except the willful forgetting by the Western world, after the onset of the slave trade, of Africa’s long and fascinating history.”

Source: “The History the Slaveholders Wanted Us to Forget” New York Times, February 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/opinion/sunday/the-history-the-slaveholders-wanted-us-to-forget.html?searchResultPosition=133

One of the reasons why we at Local Theater Company appreciate Professor Gates so much is because we share his passion for American storytelling, as well as his desire to give voice to those stories that have been overlooked by American history. His series, Finding Your Roots, is all about the significance of storytelling: “We pride ourselves on being good storytellers. I’ve loved stories since I was a little kid, and my father was a great storyteller, and I know the magic of being able to tell a great story. I love stand-up, I love novels, and I love people who master the art and language of storytelling.”

Source: “Henry Louis Gates Jr., Host ‘Finding Your Roots’ on PBS. Harvard Professor” The Paul Mecurio Show, (Podcast) October 2019 https://open.spotify.com/episode/12mJudeTEwOUPqCHOplFSW?si=nrwjMMf5SYe0J1yBMCQLGg