--- title: Henry Louis Gates Jr. | TIME description: Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or coauthored twenty-five books and created twenty-one documentary films, including Finding Your Roots. His newest book is The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song canonical: https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/ og:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 300 og:image:height: 300 og:image:alt: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:type: profile twitter:card: summary twitter:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Henry Louis Gates ## Henry Louis Gates Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or coauthored twenty-five books and created twenty-one documentary films, including _Finding Your Roots_. His newest book is [The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9781984880338) ## Henry Louis Gates *  Feb 17, 2021 ### [To Understand America, You Need to Understand the Black Church](https://time.com/5939921/henry-lous-gates-american-history-black-church/) [IDEAS](/section/ideas/) *  Apr 2, 2019 ### [How Reconstruction Still Shapes American Racism](https://time.com/5562869/reconstruction-history/) Even descendants of black heroes of Reconstruction have lost the memory of their ancestors’ heroic a... [IDEAS](/section/ideas/) Meta: null ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","@id":"https://time.com/","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/","name":"Henry Louis Gates"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/"},"name":"Henry Louis Gates","jobTitle":null,"description":"Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or coauthored twenty-five books and created twenty-one documentary films, including Finding Your Roots. His newest book is The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song","url":"https://time.com/author/henry-louis-gates-jr/","worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/"}}] ```