Henry Louis Gates Jr. appeared at the Chicago Humanities Festival Sunday to accept the Tribune’s 2019 Literary Award, recognizing his lifetime of accomplishment as a literary critic, historian and filmmaker. Gates is a fixture of American culture, a Harvard professor who’s dedicated his career to chronicling African American life and the beloved creator of the PBS genealogy series “Finding Your Roots.” He’s even a hologram on the new HBO series “Watchmen.” But the audience at Sunday’s program got a glimpse of Gates’s genius for conversation.
Whether it was relating anecdotes from dinner with (Chicago-based) artist Kerry James Marshall and director and playwright Cheryl Lynn Bruce, recounting a tough phone call with LL Cool J about unexpected discoveries in his family tree, or drawing parallels between the era of Reconstruction and our current political moment, Gates fastened the audience’s attention with stories that were at once lively with detail and weighted with emotion.
Gates’s latest book, “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow,” examines the 12 years after the Civil War when slavery was abolished, birthright citizenship was established and all men were granted the right to vote. He also made a PBS documentary about the same subject.
“When I was trying to pitch it to PBS, they said, ‘Reconstruction? Who cares?'” Gates recalled. “Twelve years of freedom followed by an alt-right rollback? Does that sound familiar? And they said, ‘How much do you need?'”
Chicago Tribune Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Bruce Dold interviewed Gates on stage, noting that the newspaper had awarded Gates its Heartland Prize 25 years ago for his memoir, “Colored People.” Gates said it’s still his favorite book, one he wrote so his two daughters could better know his mother and the West Virginia world where he grew up. Since he wrote it, he’s learned more about his family tree — including the surprising fact that his ancestry is 50 percent European: “Aw, man, I almost had a heart attack.” But he isn’t sure whether he wants to revise it or perhaps add an introduction to preserve the book’s original “flavor.”
The discussion ranged from Gates’s personal family history to insight into the resurgence of white supremacy. Gates wrapped up the event with a poignant anecdote, one about his friend and fishing buddy Charles Ogletree. Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor and mentor to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“We’d drink beer and lie and signify,” Gates said, but on a particular trip, the group of friends noticed something seemed off about Ogletree. “He looked out into space, glazed. … It’s devastatingly sad for me, personally.”
And so, Gates decided to donate the $10,000 that comes with the Literary Award to support Alzheimer’s research, in Ogletree’s honor.
