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Notable Blacks Learn Ancestors' Surprises On Fascinating PBS Genealogy Special

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By WALT BELCHER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

Comic Chris Rock chokes up when he learns about his family history on a new PBS special airing Wednesday night.

As a child, he had been told not to aspire to become president of the United States because of his race.

But during the filming of "African American Lives 2," he learned that his great-grandfather served as a corporal in the Civil War, was elected to the South Carolina legislature and went from being a slave to owning 66 acres of land.

"If I would have known this, it would have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing," says Rock, who is featured in the second hour of "Lives." The special debuts at 9 p.m. Wednesday.

There is value for all us in knowing who we are and where we came from, says host Louis Henry Gates Jr., an author and scholar who learns that he has an Irish warlord among his ancestors.

Gates and Rock are among a dozen people of achievement whose genealogies become fascinating history lessons. The two-part, four-hour "Lives" special will air over two consecutive Wednesday nights as part of Black History Month programming.

Actors Don Cheadle and Morgan Freeman, singer Tina Turner, poet Maya Angelou, sports legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee and radio personality Tom Joyner are the most notable in the group.

Through DNA testing and genealogical research, each learns something about the past. Joyner, for example, discovers two of his grandmother's brothers were lynched.

A detailed account of slavery by Freeman's grandmother is uncovered. Cheadle discovers ancestors who were enslaved by Chickasaw Indians and brought to Oklahoma.

Equally as fascinating are lesser-known "Lives" subjects such as author Bliss Broyard, whose late father, Anatole Broyard, the former New York Times literary critic, was a light-skinned black Creole from New Orleans who had kept his racial heritage a secret.

Also featured are Linda Johnson Rice, whose father founded Ebony and Jet magazines, and Harvard theologian Peter Gomes, whose ancestors were freed by Quakers.

Also coming up this week as part of Black History programming:

•"Prince Among Slaves," at 10 tonight on WEDU, Channel 3, is a documentary about an educated African prince who was kidnapped by slave traders and spent 40 years on a Mississippi farm.

•"Clinton 12," at 9 p.m. Tuesday on WUSF, Channel 16, is a documentary about 12 high school students in Clinton, Tenn., who in 1956 were the first to integrate a public school in the South.

•"Central Avenue," at 8:30 p.m. Thursday on WEDU, is a locally produced documentary about a thriving black community in Tampa from the 1920s to the 1960s.

CLASSIC REMAKE: The biggest Black History Month event could be the remake of "A Raisin in the Sun" airing Feb. 25 on ABC.

Rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs stars in the three-hour adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's play about a Chicago family struggling against racism and other social hurdles in the 1950s. Also in the cast are Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and John Stamos.

"A Raisin in the Sun" was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. It premiered in 1959 with a cast that included Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett Jr.

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