African American Lives

Named one of Time Magazine‘s 25 Most Influential Americans, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is among the most prominent scholars on African American culture, history and literature of our time. Gates rose from a working class West Virginia family to become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge. While at Cambridge, Gates became enthralled with African and African American literature while under the tutelage of Wole Soyinka - BMI advisory board member, Nobel Laureate, and former Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at UNLV - and in 1981 was awarded one of the first MacArthur Foundation Fellowships for his work.In early 2006, Gates wrote and produced African American Lives for PBS, the first documentary series incorporating genealogy and science in an effort to understand African American history. This is one of the most exciting projects in which I have been involved, said Gates. It is about African American history, of course, but on a deeply personal level. Slavery deprived African Americans of their historical and familial memory, and this series is an attempt to restore that memory on both sides of the Atlantic. At this event, Gates, the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Humanities and chair of African American Studies at Harvard, discusses and shows clips from his documentary

Race, writing and difference

Recorded in Ithaca, NY by Cornell University., Sponsored by: English, Department of., Lecture, December 15, 1983.80 minutesGates discusses black writing styles.1_yx45hn8z1_cupb47c

Doctor Honoris Causa Acceptance Speech, University of Caen, 2007

It is with deep appreciation and humility that I accept this great honor, the Doctor Honoris Causa, from the historic and triumphant University of Caen. I regret that I cannot be with you in person to accept this degree, and thank my dear friend and colleague, Alice Mills, for saying a few words of thanks for me.To be honored by an esteemed French university for the work that I have done in the field of African American literature goes far beyond what I would have imagined for myself in 1975,..

Race and the humanities.

Recorded in Ithaca, NY by Cornell University., Sponsored by: Society for the Humanities., Lecture, April 15, 1988.25 minutesTape includes introductory remarks by La Capra; Gates presents an overview of the state of black education in the United States today and opens the conference Race and the Humanities.1_zkcg9k3