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Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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Book
Who’s Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Andrew S. Curran
2022
Book
The Black Box: Writing the Race
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
2024
Book
Colored People: A Memoir
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
1995
Book
The New Negro: A History in Documents, 1887–1937
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Martha H. Patterson
2025
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Related Excerpts

Worshipers at a Pentecostal church, Chicago, 1941

A Praise House of Many Mansions

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.
by Erica Armstrong Dunbar via New York Review of Books on April 29, 2021
Painting by Henri Testelin of Colbert Presenting the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences to Louis XIV in 1667 (17th century).

The Dawn of Scientific Racism

In the 1740s, Bordeaux developed some of the first modern theories of racial difference, even as the city profited from the slave trade.
by Christy Pichichero via Public Books on October 25, 2022
Aerial view illustration of a slave ship

‘Who’s Black and Why?’

A new book by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew S. Curran examines how 18th-century academics understood Black identity.
by John Samuel Harpham via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 31, 2022
A shackle hanging from a post.

A Massive New Effort to Name Millions Sold Into Bondage During The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Enslaved.org will allow anyone to search for individual enslaved people around the globe in one central online location.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on December 1, 2020

An Unfinished Revolution

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.
by James Oakes via New York Review of Books on November 21, 2019

An Unreconstructed Nation: On Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Stony the Road”

A new history of Reconstruction traces the roots of American “respectability” politics through artwork.
by Robert D. Bland via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 10, 2019

Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary

The success and brilliance of the new PBS series on Reconstruction is a reminder of the missed opportunity facing the nation.
by Keri Leigh Merritt via Smithsonian on April 23, 2019
Lithograph of the Reconstruction-era Black Senators and Congressmen.

How the South Won the Civil War

During Reconstruction, true citizenship finally seemed in reach for black Americans. Then their dreams were dismantled.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on April 1, 2019

The Black Monuments Project

America is covered in Confederate statues. We can do better — and here’s how.
by Zak Cheney-Rice, Kyle McGovern via Mic on February 1, 2018
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Black History Month

What does Black History Month leave out?
by N. D. B. Connolly via BackStory on March 7, 2017

Slavery Myths Debunked

The Irish were slaves too; slaves had it better than factory workvers; black people fought for the Confederacy; and so on.
by Jamelle Bouie, Rebecca Onion via Slate on September 29, 2015
Silhouettes of a family, three wearing shirts showing matching DNA shirts, and one with different DNA.

The Family Fallout of DNA Surprises

Through genetic testing, millions of Americans have discovered family secrets. The news has upended relationships and created a community looking for answers.
by Jennifer Wilson via The New Yorker on August 18, 2025
James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger in bed.

The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin

Once dismissed as passé, since recast as a secular saint, Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than readers in either camp recognize.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 11, 2025
Collage of documents and a sampler that record genealogical information.

Why 18th-Century Americans Were Just as Obsessed With Their Genealogy as We Are Today

People living in British America and later the nascent United States recorded their family histories in needlework samplers, notebooks and newspapers.
by Karin Wulf via Smithsonian Magazine on July 17, 2025
A photograph of Frederick Douglass imposed on the cover of The Columbian Orator by Caleb Bingham.

The Columbian Orator Taught Nineteenth-Century Americans How to Speak

For strivers like Lincoln, guides to rhetoric had a special currency in the nineteenth century.
by Danny Heitman via Humanities on April 2, 2025
Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Five generations of a family pose at the plantation where they were enslaved, soon after Union forces arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1863.

More Than 100 U.S. Political Elites Have Family Links to Slavery

Among America's political elite, 5 living presidents, 2 Supreme Court justices, 11 governors, and 100 legislators have ancestors who enslaved Black people.
by Tom Lasseter, Lawrence Delevingne, Makini Brice, Donna Bryson, Nicholas P. Brown, Tom Bergin via Reuters on June 27, 2023
Black college students at Morgan State University, 1955.

No, the GI Bill Did Not Make Racial Inequality Worse

Popular narratives say that black veterans got no real benefits from the GI Bill. In truth, the GI Bill provided a rare positive experience with government.
by Paul Prescod via Jacobin on April 1, 2023
Collage of poets and words.

Spoken Like a True Poet

In Joshua Bennett’s history of spoken word, poetry is alive and well thanks to a movement that began in living rooms and bars.
by Stephen Kearse via Poetry Foundation on March 27, 2023
Man in suit with tape over his mouth.

In Florida, Teaching African American History Is Against the Law

The latest battlefield in the GOP’s “anti-woke” crusade.
by John Fea via Current (religion and democracy) on January 20, 2023
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