February 8, Learn how to trace your roots on PBS with Dr. Henry Louis Gates
If ever there was a time to tape “American Idol” and watch something else, this Wednesday is it.
On second thought, maybe it’s best that the PBS two-part series “African American Lives” (airing 9 to 11 p.m. Feb. 1 and 8) is stored on your TiVo as a permanent reference guide, as host Dr. Henry Louis Gates meticulously explains the process of tracing one’s family heritage back to its roots in Africa using as examples eight prominent black Americans, including Oprah Winfrey and Bishop T.D. Jakes.
“There’s been a great dispute in Africa over which tribe I belong to,” Jakes told a group of journalists at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour held in Pasadena, CA earlier this month. “So this dispels any myths. And it is impacting on a very deep way to fill in those blanks.”
Jakes – who has done extensive philanthropic work in Africa and confirmed through Gates that his people come from the Ebo tribe – joins Winfrey and fellow subjects Whoopi Goldberg, former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, composer Quincy Jones, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, author Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Chris Tucker as the lucky few assisted by Gates in tracing their roots.
