Professor henry louis gates jr biography
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Books
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 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.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 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.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Tonya Bolden. Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow. Scholastic. Abstract
This is a story about America during and after Reconstruction, one of history's most pivotal and misunderstood chapters. In a stirring account of emancipation, the struggle for citizenship and national reunion, and the advent of racial segregation, the renowned Harvard scholar delivers a book that is illuminating and timely.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. Penguin Books. Abstract
The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked “a new birth of freedom” in Lincoln’s America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the “nadir” of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (born September 16, , Keyser, West Virginia, U.S.) is an American literary critic and scholar known for his pioneering theories of African and African American literature. He introduced the notion of signifyin’ to represent African and African American literary and musical history as a continuing reflection and reinterpretation of what has come before. (Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Britannica essay on “Monuments of Hope.”) Gates’s father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor; his mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses. Gates graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in and attended a local junior college before enrolling at Yale University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history in After receiving two fellowships in , he took a leave of absence from Yale to visit Africa, working as an anesthetist in a hospital in Tanzania and then traveling through other African nations. In he entered Clare College, Cambridge, where one of his tutors was the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. Soyinka persuaded Gates to study literature instead of history; he also taught him much about the culture of the Yoruba, one of the largest Nigerian ethnic groups. After receiving a doctoral degree in English language and literature in , Gates taught literature and African American studies at Yale University, Cornell University, Duke University, and Harvard University, where he was appointed W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in In Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. In the years that followed he earned a reputation as a “literary archaeologist” by recovering and collecting thousands of lost literary works (short stories, poems, reviews, and notices) by Africa American literary critic, professor and historian (born ) Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, ), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon. In addition to producing and hosting previous series on the history and genealogy of prominent American figures, since , Gates has been host of the television series Finding Your Roots on PBS. The series combines the work of expert researchers in genealogy, history, and historical research in genetics to tell guests about the lives and histories of their ancestors. Gates was born on September 16, , in Keyser, West Virginia, to Pauline Augusta (Coleman) Gates (–) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c.&#;–). He grew up in neighboring Piedmont. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses. Later in life, Gates learned through DNA analysis that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. He also learned that he has 50% European ancestry, including Irish forebears; he was surprised his European ancestry turned out to be so substantial. Having grown up in an African-American community, however, he identifies as Black. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people. At the age of 14, Gates was injured playing touch football, fracturing the ball and socket joint of his right hip, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or co-authored twenty-one books and created fifteen documentary films, including “Wonders of the African World,” “African American Lives,” “Faces of America,” “Black in Latin America,” and “Finding Your Roots,” his groundbreaking genealogy series now in its third season on PBS. His six-part PBS documentary series, “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (), which he wrote, executive produced, and hosted, earned the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program—Long Form, as well as the Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and NAACP Image Award. Having written for such leading publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Time, Professor Gates now serves as chairman of , a daily online magazine he co-founded in , while overseeing the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field. He has also received grant funding to develop a Finding Your Roots curriculum to teach students science through genetics and genealogy. In , The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, a collection of his writings edited by Abby Wolf, was published. His film, the four-hour documentary series, “And Still I Rise: Black America since MLK,” aired on PBS in April ; a companion book, which he co-authored with Kevin M. Burke, was published by Ecco/HarperCollins in The recipient of fifty-five honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in , and in , he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. He was named to Time’s 25 Most Influential Americans Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Early life and education
Henry L. Gates, Jr.