Other Activities
In 1995 Gates presented a programme in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). The programme documents a 3000-mile journey Gates took through Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, with his then wife Sharon Adams and daughters Liza and Meggie Gates (born 1994). 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 University.
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 is traced using genealogical and historic resources, as well as DNA testing. In the first series, Gates learned that he had more than 50 percent European ancestry, and was descended from the mulatto John Redman. In addition, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries.
In the second series of episodes, Gates learned that he is part of a genetic subgroup possibly descended from or related to the 4th-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. He also learned that his ancestors included the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The two series demonstrated the many strands of heritage and history among African Americans.
Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. This program examined the genealogy of 12 North Americans of diverse ancestry: Elizabeth Alexander, Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Louise Erdrich, Malcolm Gladwell, Eva Longoria, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Nichols, Queen Noor, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Meryl Streep, and Kristi Yamaguchi
Since 1995, Gates has served as the jury chair for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which honor written works that contribute to society's understanding of racism and the diversity of human culture. Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers.
Airing in 2012, he hosted a PBS TV series called "Finding Your Roots - with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.".
Read more about this topic: Henry Louis Gates
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“Love and work are viewed and experienced as totally separate activities motivated by separate needs. Yet, when we think about it, our common sense tells us that our most inspired, creative acts are deeply tied to our need to love and that, when we lack love, we find it difficult to work creatively; that work without love is dead, mechanical, sheer competence without vitality, that love without work grows boring, monotonous, lacks depth and passion.”
—Marta Zahaykevich, Ucranian born-U.S. psychitrist. “Critical Perspectives on Adult Women’s Development,” (1980)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)