Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Emmy award-winning filmmaker, historian and literary scholar, will deliver the 2019 Chancellor’s Speaker Series presentation, part of the annual UNC Charlotte Civic Series presented by Bank of America.
His talk is scheduled for 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Cone University Center, McKnight Hall. RSVP to attend. Registrants will be entered into a drawing for a signed copy of Gates’ new book, “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy and the Rise of Jim Crow.” The winner will be notified by email and must attend the lecture to receive the book.
The Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, Gates also is director of the university’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is the author or co-author of 24 books and has made 20 documentary films, including “Faces of America,” “Black in Latin America,” “Black America since MLK: And Still I Rise” and “Africa’s Great Civilizations.” His groundbreaking genealogy series, “Finding Your Roots,” is entering its sixth season on PBS.
Gates won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program—Long Form for his six-part PBS documentary, “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (2013), which he wrote, produced and hosted. The series also won the Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and an NAACP Image Award.
He is the recipient of 51 honorary degrees and was among the first awardees of the “genius grants” from the MacArthur Foundation. In 1998, Gates was the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal.
Gates earned a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from Yale University and master’s and doctoral degrees in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge.
The UNC Charlotte Civic Series presented by Bank of America, which includes three marquee lectures: the Chancellor's Speaker Series, the Barnhardt Seminar on Ethics and the TIAA Lecture, brings nationally recognized speakers to the University and greater Charlotte communities for thought-provoking conversations.