{"id":6895,"date":"2017-09-12T01:50:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T01:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2017\/09\/19\/award-winning-filmmaker-harvard-professor-gates-speaks-sept-18\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T14:58:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:58:22","slug":"award-winning-filmmaker-harvard-professor-gates-speaks-sept-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/award-winning-filmmaker-harvard-professor-gates-speaks-sept-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning filmmaker, Harvard professor Gates speaks Sept. 18"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Harvard University professor, journalist and author, will speak on the Furman University campus Monday, Sept. 18 at 5:30 p.m. in Shaw Hall of Younts Conference Center.<\/p>\n<p>The program, \u201cBlack America Since MLK: A Conversation with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,\u201d is free and open to the public. It is presented by Furman\u2019s Riley Institute and Department of Politics and International Affairs, with support from South Carolina ETV. Registration is not required, and seating is limited for the event.<\/p>\n<p>The conversation with Gates opens with a 30-minute screening of highlights from his documentary <em>Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise<\/em>. Gates\u2019 talk is hosted by Beryl Dakers, a long-time leader in cultural programming and outreach at South Carolina ETV.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a time when the national dialogue has been centered around what to do with the historic symbols of the Confederacy and the violence that erupted in Charlottesville a few weeks ago, we are fortunate to have a knowledgeable speaker such as Dr. Gates visit campus,\u201d said Don Gordon, executive director of the Riley Institute. \u201cAs one of the nation\u2019s leading scholars of African-American history and culture, he will have valuable insights about what is currently happening in America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African &amp; African American Research at Harvard University. He has authored or co-authored 21 books and created 16 documentary films, including <em>Wonders of the African World<\/em>, <em>African American Lives<\/em>, <em>Faces of America<\/em>, <em>Black in Latin America<\/em>, and <em>Finding Your Roots<\/em>, for which series four is currently in production.<\/p>\n<p>His six-part PBS documentary series, <em>The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross<\/em> (2013), earned the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program, as well as the Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and NAACP Image Award.<\/p>\n<p>Gates\u2019 latest documentary series is <em>Africa\u2019s Great Civilizations<\/em>, which first aired in February this year. In 2016, Gates produced the four-hour PBS documentary, <em>Black America since MLK: And Still I Rise<\/em>. A companion book, which he co-authored with Kevin M. Burke, was published by Ecco\/HarperCollins in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Having written for <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, <em>The New York Times <\/em>and <em>TIME<\/em>, Gates now serves as chairman of <em>TheRoot<\/em>, a daily online magazine he co-founded in 2008, while overseeing the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field. He has also received grant funding to develop a Finding Your Roots curriculum to teach students science through genetics and genealogy. In 2012, <em>The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader<\/em>, a collection of his writings edited by Abby Wolf, was published.<\/p>\n<p>The recipient of 55 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Gates was a member of the first class awarded \u201cgenius grants\u201d by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998, he became the first African American scholar awarded the National Humanities Medal. He was named to <em>TIME <\/em>magazine\u2019s<em> \u201c<\/em>25 Most Influential Americans\u201d in 1997, to <em>Ebony<\/em>\u2019s<em> \u201c<\/em>Power 150\u201d list in 2009, and its<em> \u201c<\/em>Power 100\u201d list in 2010 and 2012.<\/p>\n<p>He earned a bachelor\u2019s in English language and literature from Yale University in 1973, and his master\u2019s and doctorate in English literature from the University of Cambridge in 1979.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about the event, contact the Riley Institute at 864-294-3546. Or contact the Furman News and Media Relations office at 864-294-3107.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Harvard University professor, journalist and author, will speak on the Furman University campus Monday, Sept. 18 at 5:30 p.m. in Shaw Hall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":6896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,70,32,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-centers-and-institutes","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-riley-institute"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}