Dr. Henry Louis Gates of Harvard’s DuBois Institute was awarded the 2024 Spingarn Medal at the NAACP’s 115th Convention, held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This prestigious honor acknowledges outstanding achievement by a living African American in a variety of fields. Named after NAACP Board Chair Joel Elias Spingarn in 1915, the award has been given out every year since then.
“It is an honor to bring Professor Gates back to our national convention this year as the Spingarn Medal recipient,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. “His profound impact on the Black community cannot be understated and makes him a truly worthy individual to receive this highest distinction. Professor Gates’ contributions to the literary world and his endearing commitment to Black history will continue to inspire generations to come.”
Professor Gates has a long history of outstanding scholarship, including teaching African American literature at Duke University, Yale, Cornell and Harvard, where he was appointed the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities in 1991.
He is the author of over 20 books, including “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man” (1997), “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,” “The Trials of Phillis Wheatley,” “Colored People: A Memoir,” and “In Search of Our Roots” (2009).
The last book motivated him to host and produce the groundbreaking PBS show, “Finding Your Roots – with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,” which has aired since 2012. Professor Gates continued to light an historical path by producing a six-part series, “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,” tracing 500 years of African American history from the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade to the second inauguration of President Barack Obama.
His other films include, “The Black Church” (PBS) and “Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches,” for HBO.
Gates cofounded the website the Root, which discusses African American issues.
He has also won a Peabody Award and a Columbia Dupont Journalism Award in addition to being an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker.
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. The professor currently serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.
