Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films. The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, each received Emmy nominations. In January 2024, Finding Your Roots, Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, returned for its tenth season on PBS. His most recent history series for PBS, Gospel, premiered in February 2024.

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Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998 he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. In 2001 he discovered the first novel written by a Black female author, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, by Hannah Craft.

A native of Piedmont, West Virginia, Gates earned his B.A. in History, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at Cambridge in 1979, where he is also an Honorary Fellow. A former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and serves on a wide array of boards, including the New York Public Library, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Aspen Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of America, and The Studio Museum of Harlem. In 2011, his portrait, by Yuqi Wang, was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Books

And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Kevin M. Burke. 2015. And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK. Ecco/HarperCollins. Publisher's Version Abstract

The companion book to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s PBS series, And Still I Rise—a timeline and chronicle of the past fifty years of black history in the U.S. in more than 350 photos.

Beginning with the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965, And Still I Rise: From Black Power to the White House explores the last half-century of the African American experience.

Os Negros Na América Latina
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2014. Os Negros Na América Latina. Companhia das Letras. Abstract

Latin American Edition of 'Black in Latin America'

Segundo Henry Louis Gates Jr., a história da diáspora africana é em grande medida a história dos ciclos econômicos - mineração, açúcar, tabaco, pecuária - das colônias europeias no Novo Mundo. A partir da descoberta da América, milhões de homens e mulheres foram transportados em horríveis condições até portos como os de Havana, Veracruz e Salvador. Aqueles que sobreviviam à viagem em geral trabalhavam até a morte nas fazendas, minas e cidades coloniais, assim como seus descendentes.

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Donald Yacovone. 2013. The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. Smiley Books. Abstract
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is the companion book to the six-part, six hour documentary of the same name, airing on national, primetime public television in the fall of 2013. The series is the first to air since 1968 that chronicles the full sweep of 500 years of African American history, from the origins of slavery on the African continent and the arrival of the first black conquistador, Juan Garrido, in Florida in 1513, through five centuries of remarkable historic events right up to today—when Barack Obama is serving his second term as President, yet our country remains deeply divided by race and class.
The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2012. The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader. Edited by Abby Wolf. Basic Civitas Books. Abstract
Educator, writer, critic, intellectual, film-maker-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been widely praised as being one of America's most prominent and prolific scholars. In what will be an essential volume, The Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Reader collects three decades of writings from his many fields of interest and expertise.

Films

Finding Your Roots, Season 1
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2012. Finding Your Roots, Season 1. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes): March 25 - May 20, 2012. Abstract
The basic drive to discover who we are and where we come from is at the core of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Continuing on the quest begun in his previous projects, African American Lives, African American Lives 2, and Faces of America, Gates finds new ways to get into the DNA of American culture.
Black in Latin America
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2011. Black in Latin America. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. Four-hour series, PBS, April 19 - May 10, 2011. Abstract
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. uncovers Latin America's African roots in this four-part series. Black in Latin America is a quest to discover how Africa and Europe combined to create the vibrant cultures of Latin America, with a rich legacy of thoughtful, articulate subjects whose stories are astonishingly moving and irresistibly compelling.
Faces of America
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2010. Faces of America. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. Four-hour series, PBS, February 10 - March 3, 2010. Abstract
What made America? What makes us? These two questions are at the heart of the new PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Harvard scholar turns to the latest tools of genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans.
Looking for Lincoln
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2009. Looking for Lincoln. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. Two-hour program, PBS, February 11, 2009. Abstract
LOOKING FOR LINCOLN dissects the myths that have grown up around Abraham Lincoln. In doing so, the program addresses outstanding questions - about race, equality, religion and depression - by carefully interpreting the evidence provided by people who actually knew him. Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosts.
African American Lives 2
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2008. African American Lives 2. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. Four-hour series, PBS, February 6 and 13, 2008. Abstract
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. meets with influential African American figures, like Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Maya Angelou, to piece together their genealogy and disclose captivating facts about their ancestors. Genealogical detective work, DNA analysis and the study of historical documents fills in the gaps of history and reveals emotional tales of African American heritage and survival.
Oprah’s Roots: An African American Lives Special
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2007. Oprah’s Roots: An African American Lives Special. Writer, narrator, and executive producer. One-hour program, PBS, January 24, 2007. Abstract
Finding Oprahs Roots, a companion to the book by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., features Oprah, showing by her example, that it is possible to build an African American family tree. Excerpts from the Oprahs Roots documentary are combined with comments from many of the experts featured in the film including genealogist Tony Burroughs and historian John Thornton. Powerful storytelling and a clear how-to guide make this DVD a unique educational resource.

Edited Books

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The 20th Century Part 1: The Impact of Africa
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and David Bindman, ed. 2014. The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The 20th Century Part 1: The Impact of Africa. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Abstract
In the 1960s, art patrons Dominique and Jean de Menil founded an image archive showing the ways that people of African descent have been represented in Western art from the ancient world to modern times. Highlights from the image archive, accompanied by essays written by major scholars, appeared in three large-format volumes, consisting of one or more books, that quickly became collector's items. A half-century later, Harvard University Press and the Du Bois Institute are proud to have republished five of the original books and to present five completely new ones, extending the series into the twentieth century.

The Impact of Africa, the first of two books on the twentieth century, looks at changes in the Western perspective on African art and the representation of Africans, and the paradox of their interpretation as simultaneously "primitive" and "modern." The essays include topics such as the new medium of photography, African influences on Picasso and on Josephine Baker's impression of 1920s Paris, and the influential contribution of artists from the Caribbean and Latin American diasporas.
The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The 20th Century Part 2: The Rise of Black Artists
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and David Bindman, ed. 2014. The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The 20th Century Part 2: The Rise of Black Artists. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Abstract
In the 1960s, art patrons Dominique and Jean de Menil founded an image archive showing the ways that people of African descent have been represented in Western art from the ancient world to modern times. Highlights from the image archive, accompanied by essays written by major scholars, appeared in three large‐format volumes, consisting of one or more books, that quickly became collector’s items. A half‐century later, Harvard University Press and the Du Bois Institute are proud to have republished five of the original books and five completely new ones, extending the series into the twentieth century.

The Rise of Black Artists, the second of two books on the twentieth century and the final volume in The Image of the Black in Western Art, marks an essential shift in the series and focuses on representation of blacks by black artists in the West. This volume takes on important topics ranging from urban migration within the United States to globalization, to Négritude and cultural hybridity, to the modern black artist’s relationship with European aesthetic traditions and experimentation with new technologies and media. Concentrating on the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean, essays in this volume shed light on topics such as photography, jazz, the importance of political activism to the shaping of black identities, as well as the post-black art world.
African American National Biography
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, ed. 2013. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press. Abstract
The African American National Biography presents history through a mosaic of the lives of thousands of individuals, illuminating the abiding influence of persons of African descent on the life of this nation from the arrival of Esteban in Spanish Florida in 1529 through to notable black citizens of the present day.

The original eight-volume set has now been expanded to twelve handsome volumes in its second edition, bringing the total number of lives profiled to nearly 5,000. The AANB continues to grow along with the field of African American biographical research, providing for continuous updates to the online edition, each entry written and signed by distinguished scholars. This is a remarkable achievement, a tenfold increase over the number of biographies contained in 2004's award-winning and substantial African American Lives, and featuring such notable new entries as Cory Booker, C. Vivian Stringer, and Michelle Obama.

In addition to Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr., the AANB includes a wide range of African Americans from all time periods and all walks of life. Lives profiled include those already recognized as giants of black history, figures whose stories have never been told and that readers will be discovering for the first time, and living people who are shaping the era in which we now live. The names within are both famous and nearly-forgotten. In the words of AANB editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "These stories, long buried in the dusty archives of history, will never be lost again. And that is what scholarship in the field of African American Studies should be all about."
The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865-Present
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Claude Steele, Lawrence D. Bobo, Michael Dawson, Gerald Jaynes, Lisa Crooms-Robinson, and Linda Darling-Hammond, ed. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865-Present. Oxford University Press. Abstract

When newly-liberated African American slaves attempted to enter the marketplace and exercise their rights as citizens of the United States in 1865, few, if any, Americans expected that, a century and a half later, the class divide between black and white Americans would be as wide as it is today. The United States has faced several potential key turning points in the status of African Americans over the course of its history, yet at each of these points the prevailing understanding of African Americans and their place in the economic and political fabric of the country was at best contested and resolved on the side of second-class citizenship.

The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865-Present seeks to answer the question of what the United States would look like today if, at the end of the Civil War, freed slaves had been granted full political, social and economic rights. It does so by tracing the historical evolution of African American experiences, from the dawn of Reconstruction onward, through the perspectives of sociology, political science, law, economics, education and psychology. As a whole, the book is the first systematic study of the gap between promise and performance of African Americans since 1865. Over the course of thirty-four chapters, written by some of the most eminent scholars of African American studies and across every major social discipline, this handbook presents a full and powerful portrait of the particular hurdles faced by African Americans and the distinctive contributions African Americans have made to the development of U.S. institutions and culture. As such, it tracks where African Americans have been in order to better illuminate the path ahead.

The Classic Slave Narratives
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. 2012. The Classic Slave Narratives. Reissue Edition, Signet Classics. Abstract

Before the end of the Civil War, more than one hundred former slaves had published moving stories of their captivity and escape, joined by a similar number after the war. No group of slaves anywhere, in any other era, has left such prolific testimony to the horror of bondage and servitude.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of America's top experts in African American studies, presents four of these classic narratives that illustrate the real nature of black experience in slavery.

Fascinating and powerful, this collection includes four of the best-known examples: the lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs (alias Linda Brent), Mary Price, and Olaudah Equiano (alias Gustavus Vassa). These amazing stories are not only first-person histories of the highest caliber, they are also a unique literary form that has given birth to the spirit, vitality, and vision of America's modern black writers.

Updated with the ninth edition of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, the last edition he revised and published in his lifetime.

Twelve Years a Slave
Northup, Solomon. 2012. Twelve Years a Slave. Edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.. Introduction by Ira Berlin. Penguin Classics.