Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Author of The Classic Slave Narratives
About the Author
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia. He received a degree in history from Yale University in 1973 and a Ph.D. from Clare College, which is part of the University of Cambridge in 1979. He is a leading scholar of African-American literature, history, and show more culture. He began working on the Black Periodical Literature Project, which uncovered lost literary works published in 1800s. He rediscovered what is believed to be the first novel published by an African-American in the United States. He republished the 1859 work by Harriet E. Wilson, entitled Our Nig, in 1983. He has written numerous books including Colored People: A Memoir, A Chronology of African-American History, The Future of the Race, Black Literature and Literary Theory, and The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. In 1991, he became the head of the African-American studies department at Harvard University. He is now the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at the university. He wrote and produced several documentaries including Wonders of the African World, America Beyond the Color Line, and African American Lives. He has also hosted PBS programs such as Wonders of the African World, Black in Latin America, and Finding Your Roots. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Henry Louis Gates Jr. speaks on a panel about race in America on the Understanding Our World Stage at the National Book Festival, August 31, 2019. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
Series
Works by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers (2010) 148 copies
Africana, the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (1999) — Editor — 142 copies
Africana, the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. The Concise Desk Reference (2003) — Editor — 97 copies
Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1991) — Editor — 69 copies
In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past (2008) 63 copies
In Search of Hannah Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman's Narrative (2003) — Editor; Introduction — 56 copies
The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume IV: From the American Revolution to World War I, Part 2: Black Models and… (1989) — Editor — 40 copies
Who’s Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race (2022) 28 copies
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience (5 Volume Set) (2005) 24 copies
The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture, 1892-1938 (2007) — Editor — 20 copies
Africa: Its Geography, People, and Products [and] Africa: Its Place in Modern History (1977) — Editor — 8 copies
Black is the color of the cosmos : essays on Afro-American literature and culture, 1942-1981 (1982) 8 copies
Black in Latin America 2 copies
African American National Biography: 12-Volume Set (African American History Reference) (2013) 2 copies
Frederick Douglass 2 copies
Joséphine Baker et la revue nègre: lithographie du tumulte noir par Paul Colin, Paris, 1927 (1998) 2 copies
The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers : 10-Volume Supplement Set (1992) — Editor — 2 copies
Finding your roots. Season 8 1 copy
African American National Biography: 2-Volume Set (Oxford African American Historical Reference) (2012) 1 copy
Wole Soyinka: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources (Bibliographies and Indexes in Afro-American and African… (1986) 1 copy
Associated Works
Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) — Editor, some editions; Introduction, some editions — 680 copies
My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (2012) — Contributor — 558 copies
Booknotes: America's Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas (1997) — Contributor — 429 copies
The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (1968) — Editor, some editions — 145 copies
Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1968) — Editor, some editions — 135 copies
The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader (2014) — Editor, some editions — 118 copies
Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 91 copies
The Columbia Reader on Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics (1999) — Contributor — 78 copies
Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power and Pleasure of Reading and Writing (2018) — Contributor — 73 copies
Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice (2015) — Foreword — 70 copies
Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (1994) — Contributor — 65 copies
Black Folk Then and Now: An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race (1939) — Editor, some editions — 18 copies
The Black Flame Trilogy Book Two: Mansart Builds a School (1959) — Editor, some editions — 13 copies
The Works of William Sanders Scarborough: Black Classicist and Race Leader (2006) — Foreword — 8 copies
Harriet Wilson's New England: Race, Writing, and Region (Revisting New England: the New Regionalism) (2007) — Contributor — 5 copies
Reconstruction: America After the Civil War [2019 TV series] — Narrator — 4 copies
Li'L Dan the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story — Foreword — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
- Other names
- Gates, Skip
- Birthdate
- 1950-09-16
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Keyser, West Virginia, USA
- Places of residence
- Piedmont, West Virginia, USA
Kilimatinde, Tanzania
Ithaca, New York, USA
Durham, North Carolina, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - Education
- Piedmont High School
Potomac State College
Yale University (BA|History)
Clare College, University of Cambridge (MA, PhD | English Language and Literature) - Occupations
- professor
literary critic
writer
editor - Relationships
- Iglesias Utset, Marial (spouse)
- Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1999)
Harvard University
Phi Beta Kappa - Awards and honors
- MacArthur Fellowship (1981)
National Humanities Medal (1998)
Jefferson Lecture (2002)
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship (1973)
Carl Sandburg Literary Award (2004)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 113
- Also by
- 80
- Members
- 9,133
- Popularity
- #2,632
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 94
- ISBNs
- 303
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
- 6