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☆ Michael Douglas found out he’s related to Scarlett Johansson on ‘Finding Your Roots’
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Marianne Garvey | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —“Finding Your Roots” has found another celebrity connection. Michael Douglas discovered on a recent episode of the PBS series that he is the “DNA cousin” of actress Scarlett Johansson. “Are you kidding?” Douglas replied when host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed the connection. In one episode, Julia Roberts and Edward Norton learned they were genetic cousins and Kerry Washington received life-changing news that she was conceived through a sperm donor. “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates Jr. airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m.

Persons: Michael Douglas, ”, Scarlett Johansson, “, ” Douglas, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Douglas, Johansson, Scarlett, Julia Roberts, Edward Norton, Kerry Washington, Henry Louis Gates Organizations: CNN, PBS Locations: Eastern Europe

☆ Bob Odenkirk better call King Charles. As it turns out, they are related
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Lisa Respers France | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Bob Odenkirk was royally amused to find out he has a famous relative. During an appearance on “Finding Your Roots” set to air on PBS Tuesday, the host Henry Louis Gates Jr. let Odenkirk know he was related to the British aristocracy, including a Duke. When Gates asked it how it made him feel, Odenkirk responded, “Like I’m part of history that I didn’t think I was any part of.”“But I’m an American, I’m not a monarchist,” the actor said. You know, I feel like it’s a little twisted. Gates then teased him that he hadn’t “been royalty more than five minutes” and already was trashing his family.

Persons: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Saul ”, Gates, Odenkirk, ”, I’m, “, ” Odenkirk, King Charles Organizations: CNN, PBS

☆ I worry I got into Yale only because I'm Black. I now do everything I can to prove I belong.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Miles Kirkpatrick | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

AdvertisementAdvertisementThis has been a bit of a secret, but when I applied to Yale, I chose to apply as an African American-studies major on a whim. Regardless, part of me thinks I got in because I'm Black and chose the smaller major of African American studies. I'm now working extra hard to prove I belong at Yale. The fact that I didn't get into Princeton made me think my Yale acceptance wasn't guaranteed. I could have edged out a more qualified candidate who was not a person of color because I'm Black.

Persons: —, Du Bois, Black, I'm, advisedly, would've, I've, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Cornel, Gates, we're Organizations: Yale, Service, Harvard, Princeton, Yale Political Union, American Student Association, Black Yale, Cultural Center Locations: American, East Coast

☆ Enslaved African Americans in Maryland Linked to 42,000 Living Relatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Carl Zimmer | More About Carl Zimmer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A construction team working on a highway expansion in Maryland in 1979 discovered human remains on the grounds of an 18th-century ironworks. Eventually, archaeologists uncovered 35 graves in a cemetery where enslaved people had been buried. In the first effort of its kind, researchers now have linked DNA from 27 African Americans buried in the cemetery to nearly 42,000 living relatives. Henry Louis Gates Jr., a historian at Harvard University and an author of the study, published on Thursday in the journal Science, said that the project marked the first time that historical DNA had been used to connect enslaved African Americans to living people. “The history of Black people was intended to be a dark, unlit cave,” Dr. Gates said.

Persons: Henry Louis Gates Jr, Gates Organizations: Harvard University Locations: Maryland

☆ More than 100 U.S. political elites have family links to slavery
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Reuters Graphic | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +46 min

Then the war came, and according to the family history, Union soldiers plundered Sessions’ 27-room house. About 48 years old at the time, he did not stand a chance to succeed without slavery, the family history suggests. ‘A Better Nation’Some historians and genealogists say there is a valuable reason for white leaders – and other white Americans – to explore their links to slavery. Nicka Sewell-Smith, a professional genealogist with the family history website Ancestry.com, said people frequently ask her what to do with such documents. The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Meeks said in an interview that he has spent years trying to trace his family history back before 1870.

Persons: Black, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, James Lankford, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Joe Biden, –, Donald Trump –, Jimmy Carter, George W, Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Trump’s, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch –, Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, James Clyburn, Henry McMaster, ”, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Gates, ” “, ” Gates, enslavers, Tony Burroughs, Biden, Obama, McConnell, Burroughs, Joseph Maddox, Maddox, Sela, Rubin, James, Sal, Sam ”, Graham, Graham didn’t, Nancy Mace, Drucilla, Drucilla Mace, John Mace, Hector Godbolt, John Mace’s, Godbolt, “, ” Nancy Mace, Henry Coe, Duckworth, Coe, Margaret, Isaac, Warner, George …, Isaac Franklin –, “ There’s, ” Duckworth, George Floyd, Donald Trump, ” Biden, ‘, ’, Ben Affleck, ” Affleck, Independent Angus King, Mo Brooks, ” Brooks, Sean Kelley, Kelley, White, don’t, wasn’t, Richard Sessions, Pete Sessions, Richard’s, William Sessions, John Cowger, Tom Cotton of, ” Cotton’s, Cowger, Cotton, Archibald Crawford, Juneteenth, Shaheen, Pocahontas, Edmond Dillehay, Peter ”, Milly, Lankford, ” Lankford, Joe Wilson, Stephen H, Wilson, Boineau, General David Addison Weisiger, Wilson –, Addison Graves Wilson –, Weisiger “, ” Wilson, Daniel Weisiger, Daniel Weisiger’s, Samuel, Samuel Weisiger, Daniel, Julia Brownley, Jesse Brownley, Brownley, ” Brownley, Thomas Ferguson, Brooks, Manumission, Marie Jenkins Schwartz, ” “ It’s, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, Harvard’s Gates, Sherman, Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Nicka Sewell, Smith, Ancestry.com, ” Sewell, LaBrenda Garrett, Nelson, Garrett, Rick Larsen, John Wiggins, Larsen, – Gilbura, George, Agg –, ” Larsen, Gilbura, Agg, Gregory Meeks, Meeks, Jim Crow South, – Meeks, – “, ” Meeks, “ I’m, I’m, Tom Bergin, Makini Brice, Nicholas P, Brown, Donna Bryson, Lawrence Delevingne, Brad Heath, Andrea Januta, Gui Qing Koh, Tom Lasseter, Grant Smith, Maurice Tamman, Catherine Tai Design, John Emerson, Jane Ross, Emma Jehle, Jeremy Schultz, Blake Morrison Organizations: Reuters, Republicans, U.S, Supreme, Republican, Harvard University, PBS, United States Congress, Representative, WikiLeaks, Sony, Facebook, White, FedEx, National Museum of, 117th, Independent, University of Essex, Geographic, American Economic, Pete Sessions, Sessions, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jeanne Shaheen U.S, CNN, Biden, Trump, ” Reuters, South, South Carolina General Assembly, Confederate, statehouse, Congressional, Chesterfield County, Mount Vernon College, George Washington University, Mo Brooks Former U.S, “, New York Times, United, Federal Government, Union, Black, Southern, Democrat, House Foreign Affairs, Klux Klan Locations: U.S, America, Confederate States, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Congress, Black, Northern, Southern, Illinois, Virginia, Frederick County , Virginia, United States, Minnesota, ”, Mo Brooks of Alabama, American, Texas, Mississippi, Chicot County , Arkansas, Chicot County, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Yell County, Yell County , Arkansas, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Frankfurt, Germany, Chesterfield County , Virginia, California, Portsmouth , Virginia, Alabama, Haywood County , North Carolina, Antebellum, United States of America, Washington, Nicholas County , Kentucky, Queens , New York, New York, York County, Mende, Sierra Leone, Africa, Bunce

They include eight chief executives of the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America, which seceded and waged war to preserve slavery. Although white people enslaved Black people in Northern states in early America, by the eve of the Civil War, slavery was almost entirely a Southern enterprise. South Carolina, where the Civil War began, illustrates the familial ties between lawmakers and the nation’s history of slavery. Each of the seven white lawmakers who served in the 117th Congress is a direct descendant of a slaveholder, Reuters found. In researching America’s political elite, Reuters found names – almost always just a first name – of 712 people enslaved by the ancestors of the political elite.

Persons: Black, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen, Joe Biden, –, Donald Trump –, Jimmy Carter, George W, Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch –, Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, James Clyburn, Henry McMaster, ”, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Gates, ” “, ” Gates, enslavers, Tony Burroughs, Biden, Obama, McConnell, “ it’s, ” Burroughs, LINDSEY GRAHAM, Joseph Maddox, Maddox, Sela, Rubin, James, Sal, Sam ”, Graham, Graham didn’t, NANCY MACE, Nancy Mace, Drucilla Mace, John Mace, Hector Godbolt, John Mace’s, Godbolt, “, ” Nancy Mace, TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Duckworth, Henry Coe, Coe, Margaret, Isaac, Warner, George …, Isaac Franklin –, “ There’s, ” Duckworth, Tom Bergin, Makini Brice, Nicholas P, Brown, Donna Bryson, Lawrence Delevingne, Brad Heath, Andrea Januta, Gui Qing Koh, Tom Lasseter, Grant Smith, Maurice Tamman, Blake Morrison Organizations: U.S, Reuters, Republicans, Supreme, Republican, Harvard University, PBS, United States Congress, Geographic, Journalists, Black, Thomson Locations: America, U.S, Confederate States, Arkansas, North Dakota, Black, Northern, Southern, South Carolina, Congress, New Hampshire , Maine, Massachusetts, United States, Illinois, Virginia, Frederick County , Virginia

☆ U.S. African American studies does not include material targeted by Florida governor
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Feb 1 (Reuters) - An African American studies course for U.S. high school students that was released on Wednesday does not include material that Florida's conservative governor said pushed a liberal agenda, the latest development in a fierce debate about politics, education and censorship. Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, was among scholars who praised the curriculum in the College Board statement. On Tuesday, more than 200 African American studies faculty members from dozens of universities published an open letter defending the course and expressing their "outrage at the efforts of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to delegitimize the AP's pilot curriculum in African American Studies." "We categorically reject DeSantis's autocratic claim to knowing what college-level material should be available in an AP African American Studies course." DeSantis and other Florida officials accused the lessons of being "indoctrination" for including Black queer studies, Black Lives Matter, reparations, and the abolishment of prisons.

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