Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored seventeen books and created fourteen documentary films, including "Wonders of the African World", "African American Lives", "Black in Latin America", and "Finding Your Roots", now in its second season on PBS. His six-part PBS documentary series, "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross", which he wrote, executive produced, and hosted, earned the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program?Long Form, as well as the Peabody Award and NAACP Image Award. Having written for such leading publications as "The New Yorker", "The New York Times", and "Time", Professor Gates now serves as editor-in-chief of "TheRoot.com", a daily online magazine, while overseeing the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field. In 2012, "The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader", a collection on his writings, was published. 

September 16th, 1950 in Keyser (Age 73)