Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, has received the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The annual award is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious prizes recognizing outstanding achievements by Black Americans. Dr. Gates is the 109th recipient of the Spingarn Medal since its inception in 1915.
Dr. Gates has contributed immensely to the research, documentation, and preservation of African American history and culture. His work has illuminated the quest for genealogical and historical research of African Americans in the history of both Africa and America, and beyond. He has authored numerous books including Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (Penguin Press, 2019), The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song (Penguin Press, 2021), and The Black Box: Writing the Race (Penguin Press, 2024).
Since 2012, he has hosted the extremely popular “Finding Your Roots” series on PBS. The series has resulted in much-needed documentaries on the lives of African Americans in the United States as well as Africans and African-ancestored persons in South America.
In addition to his endowed professorship, Dr. Gates serves as the director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard, where he has taught for over three decades. He previously served on the faculty at Duke University, Cornell University, and Yale University.
A native of West Virginia, Dr. Gates is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England.
