Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Gates in 2013
Born	(1950-09-16) September 16, 1950 (age 73) Keyser, West Virginia, U.S.
Occupation	Author documentary filmmaker essayist literary critic professor
Education	Potomac State College Yale University (BA) Clare College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
Genre	Essay, history, literature
Subject	African-American Studies
Notable works	The Signifying Monkey (1988)
Spouses	Sharon Lynn Adams ​ ​ (m. 1979; div. 1999)​ Marial Iglesias Utset ​ ​ (m. 2021)​
Children	2

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.^[1] He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon.

In addition to producing and hosting previous series on the history and genealogy of prominent American figures, since 2012, Gates has been host of the television series Finding Your Roots on PBS. The series combines the work of expert researchers in genealogy, history, and historical research in genetics to tell guests about the lives and histories of their ancestors.