Meet Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Explore the biography of our favorite Literary Scholar and Professor

Published on September 27, 2024 by PBS

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 about Black history.

Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and was elected an Honorary Fellow by the Royal Academy of Arts in England.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. TV Shows & Documentaries

Upcoming Projects:

Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Season 11 premieres January 7, 2025.

Professor Gates' next new documentary series, Great Migrations: A People on the Move, premieres January 28, 2025.

Recent Projects:

Finding Your Roots, Gates’ groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, completed its tenth season on PBS and was nominated for a 2024 Primetime Emmy. His most recent history series, Gospel, premiered on PBS in February 2024.

The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, each received Emmy nominations.

His latest book is The Black Box: Writing the Race (Penguin Random House, 2024) which was named one of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year.

Watch available PBS shows and films from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. now.

Professor Gates: Highlights

Henry Louis Gates Jr Reflects on the Black Church

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Education & Background

Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including from his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. He 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. In 2023, his portrait, by Kerry James Marshall, was hung at the Fitzwilliam Museum at The University of Cambridge.

Explore more video from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Bring Professor Gates to the Classroom

Looking for class materials? Check out PBS LearningMedia's collection for Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Interviews with Professor Gates

Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his series, 'The Black Church'

A new four-part series, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song," premieres Tuesday on PBS. It’s a sweeping history of religion, politics and culture led by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the noted Harvard scholar and host of the PBS show "Finding Your Roots." He joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss the documentary, as part of our arts and culture series, "CANVAS."

Clip 6m 43s

Clip

Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his series, 'The Black Church'

6m 43s

Clip

In ‘Black America Since MLK,’ success and vulnerability

6m 1s

It’s the best of times and worst of times for black Americans, says Henry Louis Gates Jr. He joins Jeffrey Brown to preview the PBS mini-series “Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise,” and discuss both great gains and the vulnerability of those gains in the years after Dr. Martin Luther King.

Clip

Why we’re overdue to know Africa’s great civilizations

6m 10s

Archeologists and scholars are learning more about Africa than ever before, from the digitization of records and the unearthing of ancient treasures. Audie Cornish talks with Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University about Africa’s rich but overlooked history and how his six-part PBS series “Africa’s Great Civilizations” took shape.

Clip

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on the Importance of Genealogy

17m 14s

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has explored the ancestry of dozens of people from diverse backgrounds on his show Finding Your Roots, including Christiane’s in 2019. Now in its sixth season, the show features guests like Jeff Goldblum, RuPaul, and Queen Latifah. Gates believes family tapestries can offer a sense of stability and joins Walter Isaacson to discuss what he's learned about race and identity.