BENNINGTON — Know thyself.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. spoke to a near-capacity crowd Friday night at the Bennington Center for the Arts as part of Southern Vermont College's 2009-10 "From Inspiration to Innovation" lecture series.

The Harvard University professor's arrest July 16 for disorderly conduct launched a national discussion on race. Gates claimed he was the victim of racial profiling after being arrested at his home by a white police officer who was investigating a reported burglary. The charge was later dismissed, but race and racial identity was at the center of Gates' talk, "Genealogy, Genetics and African-American History."

The talk prompted amateur genealogist Jeff Coy to make the drive from Waitsfield.

"I started researching my family history in 1982 and did it pretty religiously for seven or eight years," said Coy, who has traced some of his family lines to the 14th century.

Gates talked about the day he "met" Jane Gates, born in 1818. After his grandfather's funeral in June 1960, Gates returned to the family home and his father showed him the obituary of Jane Gates, who died in 1888.

"He said, 'That is your great-great grandmother. That's the oldest Gates, and she was a slave,'" Gates recalled. "The next day, I went out and I got a composition notebook and that night I interviewed my father about his family history, then I turned and did the same thing with my mother. Since then I've been obsessed with my family history."

Gates chased the paper trail to when his ancestors were brought to America in chains, but like other black American genealogists, the trail went cold after that. In 2000, Gates talked with a geneticist who was drawing blood from black Americans to learn what tribe they came from in Africa. When the test came back, Gates learned he was descended from Nubians, who controlled ancient Egypt for centuries. He also learned that more than half of his DNA is European, not African, and going back six generations he had a black ancestor who fought in the American Revolution.

Gates' approach to genealogy was featured in the PBS miniseries "African American Lives," and he has been working with Southern Vermont College on a first-year course, "Exploring Faces of Diversity: Building the 'I am … and I am from' Exhibit."

SVC is the first college in the United States to incorporate Gates' genetic research into its curriculum. Students completed their own genealogical research, including DNA testing, and created an exhibit based on their individual histories for the Bennington Museum. Gates toured the exhibit prior to his lecture.

"We are very fortunate to have Dr. Gates as a mentor for this class and as a guest here on campus," said Provost Albert DeCiccio, who is teaching the class.

"Dr. Gates brings remarkable experience and wisdom, and I am delighted our students, faculty and staff can learn from and with him," said college President Karen Gross. "Dr. Gates appreciates the work of small colleges like SVC, and his presence on our campus is a tangible symbol of this."

To know one's history is empowering, Gates said.

"I thought, maybe we could use this to motivate inner-city children of color," Gates said, with the idea that the DNA testing could also incorporate lessons in science and history. "We are losing the battle in the African-American community and the only way to liberate ourselves and our people is to embrace that knowledge of who we are."

josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com