Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Watch iconic series like Making Black America, Finding Your Roots, The Black Church from Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Explore our shared histories with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. through iconic series like Making Black America, Finding Your Roots, and The Black Church.
Explore our shared histories with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. through iconic series like Making Black America, Finding Your Roots, and The Black Church.
Henry Louis Gates uncovers the lost roots of actors Billy Crudup and Tamera Mowry-Housley.
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Out of the Past
Journalists Jim Acosta and Van Jones uncover the ancestors who blazed a trail for them.
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Anchormen
Henry Louis Gates reveals the unexpected family trees of Angela Y. Davis and Jeh Johnson
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And Still I Rise
Featured Shows from Professor Gates
Featured from Making Black America
Episode 1
Hour one details how African Americans have created spaces for survival, pleasure and joy.
Hour two explores the nation within a nation built by Black Americans out of necessity.
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Episode 2
Hour three uncovers vast social networks created by Black Americans to defeat Jim Crow.
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Episode 3
From Black Power to Black Twitter hour four reveals safe spaces created by Black America.
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Episode 4
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. asks his "Making Black America" panel to define "Black love."
What is “Black Love?”
The Building of Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Since 1837, more than 100 HBCUs have been founded in the United States.
The Building of Historically Black Colleges and Universities
The Evolution of Black Literature
Episode 1 of "Making Black America" explores the evolution of Black literature.
The Evolution of Black Literature
Host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the roots of African American religion.
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Episode 1
Discover how the Black church expanded to address social inequality.
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Episode 2
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reflects on the Black Church
The Black Church is the place where the African American made their way in society.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reflects on the Black Church
The Reader risked his life to bring to the Church what should have never been prohibited.
Cornerstones | The Reader
The Servant taught others how to serve more deeply, not as a slave, but as a free man.
Cornerstones | The Servant
The Hymnist sang praises to celebrate the soul's salvation and save the body from slavery.
Cornerstones | The Hymnist
Bring Professor Gates into the Classroom
PBS LearningMedia
Finding Your Roots Educational Materials
Explore these standards-based lesson plans to dive into U.S. and world history, by taking personal stories and diving into important moments that shaped our world.
PBS LearningMedia
The Black Church Educational Materials
Teachers are invited to utilize these lesson plans, which are drawn from the series, to explore the ways that the Black church has shaped our nation's history.
PBS LearningMedia
Africa's Great Civilizations Educational Material
Africa's Great Civilizations takes a look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. Explore lessons for middle school and high school grade levels.
PBS LearningMedia
Black America Since MLK: Educational Materials
Explore educational materials from the series Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise.
More About Professor Gates
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’s most recent books are Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song.
He has also produced and hosted more than 20 documentary films, most recently Making Black America on PBS.
Finding Your Roots, his groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is heading into its ninth season. He is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, most recently a Litt.D. from 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. 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.
