Publications

2024
Finding Your Roots, Season 10
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2024. Finding Your Roots, Season 10. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides twenty-one compelling guests-including three of his loyal viewers--deep into their family trees, revealing surprising stories that transcend borders, illuminating an American root system fortified by its diversity.
GOSPEL
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2024. GOSPEL. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (four, one-hour episodes). Abstract
From acclaimed scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Gospel explores Black spirituality in sermon and song. From the blues to hip-hop, African Americans have been the driving force of sonic innovation for over a century. While musical styles come and go, there is one sound that has been a constant source of strength, courage, and wisdom from the pulpit to the choir lofts on any given Sunday: gospel.
The Black Box: Writing the Race
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2024. The Black Box: Writing the Race. Penguin Random House. Abstract
A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country’s history.
2023
Finding Your Roots, Season 9
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2023. Finding Your Roots, Season 9. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides twenty-one influential guests deep into the branches of their family trees, revealing surprising stories of forgotten ancestors that transcend borders, illuminating an American root system fortified by its diversity.
The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art, Book 1: From Colony to Nation
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., David Bindman, and Alejandro de la Fuente, ed. 2023. The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art, Book 1: From Colony to Nation. Harvard University Press. Abstract
The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art is the first comprehensive survey of the visual representation of people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, some twelve million of whom were forcibly imported into the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade.
2022
Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2022. Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches. Executive producer. Feature-length documentary, HBO: February 2022. Abstract
Famed anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass' words about racial injustice are brought to life in this documentary.
Finding Your Roots, Season 8
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2022. Finding Your Roots, Season 8. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides twenty-one influential guests deep into the branches of their family trees, revealing surprising stories of love, hardship, and triumph that transcend borders and merge to form an American root system fortified by its diversity.
Making Black America: Through the Grapevine
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2022. Making Black America: Through the Grapevine. writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (four, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Professor Gates, with directors Stacey L. Holman and Shayla Harris, chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” The series recounts the establishment of the Prince Hall Masons in 1775 through the formation of all-Black towns and business districts, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, destinations for leisure and the social media phenomenon of Black Twitter.
Black History in Two Minutes (or So)
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2022. Black History in Two Minutes (or So). Writer, host, and executive producer. Web series. Series Two and Three, 2022-2023. Abstract
It's Black History delivered in short, lively, fact-packed stories accessible to people of all ages and education levels. It's fast, accurate U.S. history describing major historical events and introducing less well-known experiences involving Black Americans. The topics range from recent events to the founding of the United States of America. Heroes of the Civil Rights movement are covered, as are some of the more obscure figures in the fight for equality.
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Genevieve West, ed. 2022. You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston. Amistad. Abstract
You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. 
Who's Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew S Curran, ed. 2022. Who's Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race. Harvard University Press. Abstract
The first translation and publication of sixteen submissions to the notorious eighteenth-century Bordeaux essay contest on the cause of black skin―an indispensable chronicle of the rise of scientifically based, anti-Black racism.
2021
Finding Your Roots, Season 7
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. Finding Your Roots, Season 7. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides influential guests deep into the branches of their family trees, revealing surprising stories of love, hardship, and triumph that transcend borders and merge to form an American root system fortified by its diversity.
Finding Your Roots, Season 7
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. Finding Your Roots, Season 7. Writer, host, and executive producer. Television series, PBS (ten, one-hour episodes). Abstract
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. returns for a new season of FINDING YOUR ROOTS. Using genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis, Gates guides influential guests deep into the branches of their family trees, revealing surprising stories of love, hardship, and triumph that transcend borders and merge to form an American root system fortified by its diversity.
Black Art in the Absence of Light
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. Black Art in the Absence of Light. Executive producer: Feature-length documentary, HBO: February 2021. Abstract
A look at the indelible contributions of some of the foremost African American artists in today's contemporary art world.
The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song. Writer, host, and executive producer: Four-hour series, PBS: February 2021. Abstract
Trace the history of the Black Church in America. From enslavement to today, the series explores key events shaping an institution at the heart of African American communities on the frontlines of hope and change.
Civil War (Or, Who Do We Think We Are)
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. Civil War (Or, Who Do We Think We Are). Executive producer. Feature-length documentary, NBCUniversal, June 2021. Abstract
A journey across the United States to explore the story of the Civil War of Americans from President Obama's final year in office through the present.
W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Eric Foner, ed. 2021. W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction. Library of America. Abstract
Upon its publication in 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction offered a radical new assessment of the post–Civil War era, a time when African American progress was met with a white supremacist backlash and, ultimately, the unjust social order of Jim Crow. Previously cast as a misguided, even villainous effort to impose an inverted and “unnatural” racial hierarchy on the defeated South, Reconstruction was for Du Bois nothing less than a milestone in the course of human history, “the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen.”
The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2021. The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song. Penguin Books. Abstract
From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.
2019
Reconstruction: America after the Civil War
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2019. Reconstruction: America after the Civil War. Writer, host, and executive producer. Four-hour series, PBS, April 9 – April 16, 2019. Abstract
A comprehensive and compelling history of the United States immediately following the Civil War.
Who Killed Malcolm X?
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2019. Who Killed Malcolm X?. Executive producer. Six-hour series, Fusion TV, September 30, 2019 / Netflix, January 17, 2020. Abstract
Activist Abdur-Rahman Muhammad begins his own investigation into the perplexing details surrounding the assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X.

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