Ben Affleck and Henry Louis Gates Revising History of How Star’s Slaveholding Ancestor Was Edited From PBS Program
by Michael Patrick Leahy 23 Apr 2015
Hollywood movie star Ben
Affleck and Harvard Professor Henry Louis
Gates continue to revise recent history in their public statements
surrounding Affleck’s successful pressuring of Gates, executive producer and
host of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,”
to remove any mention of his slaveholding ancestor, Benjamin L. Cole,
from the “Roots of Freedom” episode that aired on PBS in October.
Late Wednesday, Affleck claimed in a Facebook post that during the
filming process, Gates presented no details about the life of his slaveholding
ancestor Benjamin Cole.
“I see this story being framed as ‘censorship’ on some
sites,” Affleck wrote, “when I told Skip [Professor Henry Louis Gates] I was
uneasy about the slave owner, he told me he had not included it in his
preliminary cut because there wasn’t much detail – a name and no details, so he
wasn’t going with it to begin with.” (emphasis added)
But an unedited transcript of the first version of the
“Roots of Freedom” episode that featured Affleck, released yesterday on Gawker and
again today at the Washington Post
and the Independent,
belies this claim:
VOICE OVER: THIS MAN WAS BEN’S THIRD GREAT
GRANDFATHER, BENJAMIN COLE, AND HE WAS LIVING IN SAVANNAH, GEORGIA AT THE TIME.
COLE WAS ONE OF SAVANNAH’S MOST PROMINENT CITIZENS—A
WEATLHY LAND OWNER AND THE SHERIFF OF THE ENTIRE COUNTY.
AFFLECK: That’s amazing. I got a…we have a house in
Savannah.
GATES: Really?
AFFLECK: Yeah.
GATES: Did it ever occur to you that you had deep roots
there?
AFFLECK: No, it didn’t. It didn’t at all. I had no idea I
had any southern roots at all, so this is remarkable.
COLE OWNED A LARGE FARM IN GEORGIA AT A TIME WHEN
SLAVE LABOR HAD MADE THE STATE THE CENTER OF THE SOUTH’S COTTON KINGDOM.
WE WANTED TO SEE IF WE COULD LEARN HOW BEN’S ANCESTOR
FELT ABOUT THIS PECULIAR INSTITUTION.
AND FOR THAT, WE STARTED WITH THE 1850 CENSUS.
GATES: This is the slave schedule of the 1850 Census. In
1850, they would list the owner of slaves in a separate Census.
AFFLECK: There’s Benjamin Cole, owned 25 slaves.
GATES: Your third great-grandfather owned 25 slaves. He
was a slave owner.
THESE HOLDINGS PUT BENJAMIN COLE AMONG THE SOUTHERN
ELITE.
ONLY ABOUT 10% OF ALL SLAVE HOLDERS OWNED 20 SLAVES OR
MORE.
AFFLECK: God. It gives me kind of a sagging feeling to
see, uh, a biological relationship to that. But, you know, there it is, part of
our history.
Breitbart News has sent numerous emails and made several
phone calls to Professor Gates and Peter Kunhardt, another executive producer
of the “Finding Your Roots” series, as well as Ben Affleck’s publicist at
Sunshine Sachs requesting they confirm or deny the authenticity of this
transcript. None have responded.
Boston.com reported that in an
statement on Wednesday, Gates said “the omission was made not because of
Affleck’s request, but because he had other ancestors with more interesting
stories that the show decided to spotlight instead.” (emphasis added)
But the details of Benjamin Cole’s life—well known to both
Affleck and Gates in April 2014 when those three to four hours of filming of
Affleck and Gates conversations by the producers of the series took
place—created by far the most compelling story of any of Affleck’s ancestors
and perfectly suited the original premise of that episode, as indicated by that
unedited first transcript obtained by Gawker:
GATES VOICE OVER: IN THIS EPISODE, WE PIECE TOGETHER
THE LOST FAMILY HISTORIES OF ACTOR BEN AFFLECK, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST BEN
JEALOUS, AND ACTOR KHANDI ALEXANDER.
THEIR ROOTS LEAD TO ANCESTORS WHOSE LIVES WERE SHAPED
BY THE TWO DEFINING WARS IN OUR NATIONS HISTORY. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND
THE CIVIL WAR.
Benjamin Cole was Sheriff of Chatham County, Georgia (where
Savannah is the county seat) for nine tumultuous years, before, during, and
after the Civil War, from 1859 to 1868.
Cole was a key member of the civic and political leadership
of Savannah, and was part of the group that administered the city after General
Sherman conquered the city in 1864.
Ironically, in 2013 Affleck purchased what is
rumored to be a $20 million home on nearby Hampton Island, and is frequently
seen in the city of Savannah.
The New York Times offers a dramatic telling of the story
of life in Savannah during the Civil War, and the critical role played by the
local political leadership, of which Benjamin Cole was a member.
Breitbart also contacted PBS, which airs the “Finding Your
Roots” series on its network, for comment on the Affleck-Gates controversy, but
the network was cautiously noncommittal.
“It is in everyone’s interest that we move quickly to bring
the internal review to completion, but we also want to ensure that we are being
thorough. We will share the findings of the review as soon as it is concluded,”
PBS said in a statement
released Thursday morning.
Breitbart News pressed PBS to learn if it will remove
Professor Gates from his position as executive producer of “Finding Your Roots”
if the “internal review” concludes, as it is likely to do if it is
comprehensive, that he violated PBS policies in how he dealt with this episode.
PBS responded cautiously to that inquiry.
“Professor Gates is not an employee of PBS. Once the
internal review concludes, we will share the findings. It is premature to
comment on what will happen until the review is completed,” a spokesperson for
PBS tells Breitbart News.
The “Finding Your Roots Series,” according the PBS website,
“is a production of Kunhardt McGee Productions, Inkwell Films and WNET in
association with Ark Media. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Peter Kunhardt, Dyllan
McGee and Julie Anderson are executive producers. Stephen Segaller is executive
producer in charge for WNET.”
The series boasts an
impressive list of corporate financial sponsors:
Major corporate support for the second season of Finding
Your Roots is provided by Ancestry.com,” the website says. “Additional
corporate funding is provided by Ford Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson and
McDonald’s. Major support is also provided by the Ford Foundation, Dr.
Georgette Bennett and Dr. Leonard Polonsky, Candace King Weir, the Daryl and
Steven Roth Foundation and Loida N. Lewis. Support is also provided by the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.
Surprisingly, the “Finding Your Roots” website continues to
offer this description of
the “Roots of Freedom” episode:
Ben Affleck, Khandi Alexander and Benjamin Jealous learn
their families have long been engaged in the battle for freedom and civil
rights, principles passed down through generations of ancestors.
Affleck and Gates apparently believe their historical
revisionism—of both Affleck’s ancestry and the events surrounding the censored
production of the “Roots of Freedom” episode featuring Affleck—will have little
consequence on their professional careers.
PBS, the corporate sponsors of “Finding Your Roots,” and the
viewing public may have a different perspective.
Ben
Affleck
Ben
Affleck is a William Morris Endeavor
Entertainment client.
Note: Ari Emanuel is the
co-CEO & director for William Morris
Endeavor Entertainment, and Rahm I. Emanuel’s brother.
Rahm
I. Emanuel is Ari Emanuel’s
brother, a member of the Commercial Club
of Chicago, the Chicago (IL) mayor,
and was the White House chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration.
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think
tank), ProPublica, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund,
and the Aspen Institute (think tank).
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Henry Louis
Gates Jr. was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), is a director at ProPublica,
a director at the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund, a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the host of African American Lives.
African
American Lives was a Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) program.
Robert
H. Malott was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a board member for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member
of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Lester Crown
was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and is a
member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
R.
Eden Martin is the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Newton
N. Minow is a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and was the chairman for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
John Edward Porter
was a director at the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS), and an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Henry Louis
Gates Jr. was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), is a director at ProPublica,
a director at the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund, a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the host of African American Lives.
African
American Lives was a Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) program.
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