If Chris Rock knew more about his ancestry while growing up, his childhood aspirations of becoming the president of the United States might not have seemed so foolish to his mother. Rock, featured in the second installment of the PBS series in which Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., uses traditional and genetic genealogical research to uncover the ancestry of prominent African-Americans, discovered that his great-great grandfather was a politician.
Rock, one of 12 people featured in “African American Lives 2” to air starting next week, learns that his great-great grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, served with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and after a few months was promoted to corporal. At 27, Tingman was elected into the South Carolina legislature. When he died in 1917, he had gone from slavery 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,” Rock told Gates, adding that his mother shot down his hopes as a child when he said he wanted to be president.
“She didn’t know about their ancestry either,” Gates said at a recent PBS event in Washington, D.C., to announce the premiere date of the series. In addition to learning about Harriet Tubman and other well-known Black historical figures, Rock should have known about Julius Caesar Tingman. “A picture of his great-great-grandfather should have hung above the mantel,” Gates said.
“Through even greater depth of research and more powerful storytelling, all of the stories in ‘African American Lives 2’ share a common thread — they show the value of knowing who you are and where you come from,” Gates said
In addition to Rock, the series, set to debut Feb. 6, will examine the ancestry of college administrator Kathleen Henderson, poet Maya Angelou, writer Bliss Broyard, radio host Tom Joyner, Ebony magazine Publisher Linda Johnson Rice, theologian Peter Gomes, singer Tina Turner, actors Don Cheadle and Morgan Freeman, and Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee as well as Gates, the host and co-producer.
The tagline for the series, “Discover the Truth Behind their Extraordinary Legacy,” suggests that the successes that Rock and other African-Americans have achieved aren’t just due to individual hard work and lucky breaks. For some series participants there appears to be a familial link and for others, a genetic connection.
