Interview with Dr. Gates here: (an excerpt)

Why we’re overdue to know the brilliance of Africa’s civilizations
February 27, 2017 at 06:23 PM EST

Audie Cornish of NPR's "All Things Considered" has our look.

AUDIE CORNISH: The history of the African continent, home to the 15 percent of the world's population, remains a mystery for many.

Historian and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. admits, in his youth, it was a place he rarely considered. Now he has a new PBS documentary series that reveals great moments in the continent's pre-colonial history.

It's called "Africa's Great Civilizations." He joins me now to discuss that work.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., welcome to the program.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR., Harvard University: Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

AUDIE CORNISH: So, you have tackled all kinds of African-American history, but this goes all the way back, way back to cave paintings.

So, what was the genesis of this idea?

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.: I wanted to do a comprehensive history of Africa, and this is it.

I have been thinking about it five years. Took us a year to shoot. We went to 12 African countries. And it's exhilarating, six-hour series on 200,000 years of African history.

When I was growing up, Africa was a place to be avoided, even for black people. Our images of Africa came from Tarzan and Ramar and Sheena of the jungle. And we were embarrassed about Africa.

AUDIE CORNISH: As you talked about the effort to kind of distance, right? It was used as an insult within the community.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.: You black African, oh, my God, that was like the N-word.

But all that changed for me. It began to change in 1960, when I was 10 years old, and 17 African nations became independent. And I had a very smart geography teacher, Mr. McHenry, our only male teacher. And he was very much into current events.

And I was very much into being a good student. And a lot of the current events featured these emerging, new African countries. And so I mesmerized romantic sounding, rhythmic names like Masha Chubay and Patrice Lumumba and Mogadishu, words like that.

And I became fascinated with Africa, slowly, but surely making my way to Africa when I was 19 years old.

AUDIE CORNISH: I think we can hear that in your introduction. I want to play a clip of that.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.: OK.

Africa is the home of the world's most ancient civilizations. Far to too often, Africa has been thought of isolated and static, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The roots of every family tree trace here to Africa, and so does the history of civilization. In this series, we will be going on a journey through 200,000 years of history.

We will explore great cities built along Africa's extensive trade networks, discover art of unparalleled beauty, technical brilliance, and marvel at thousands of years of breathtaking architecture.
More here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/bb/overdue-know-brilliance-africas-civilizations