“Call Me America”: The Construction of Race, Identity, and History in Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Wonders of the African World

The article analyzes Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s six-part, 12-hour documentary, Wonders of the African World, and the fierce debates that occurred between Africana and African Americans about issues of race, identity, and history in the wake of the video's release. The article explores the ways in which questions about racial identity, the relationship of African Americans to Africa, and the politics of history were framed in the film and how this relates to larger societal debates about Africans and African Americans in the academy, race and citizenship, and identity and narrative authority.