HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Famed speaker, scholar, author and TV host Henry Louis Gates Jr. will be in Huntington to kick off the Marshall Distinguished Speaker Series’ second season.
On Friday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m., the Huntington Foundation, Inc., City of Huntington, Nelson Mullens and Village Caregiving will present “A Conversation with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” at the Joan C. Edwards Playhouse.
The conversation will be moderated by Marshall University president Brad D. Smith.
A native of Piedmont, West Virginia, Gates earned his B.A. in History, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at Cambridge in 1979, where he is also an Honorary Fellow. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.
In addition to Gate’s educational credentials, he is also an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder.
A former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and serves on a wide array of boards, including the New York Public Library, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Aspen Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of America, and The Studio Museum of Harlem.
In 2011, his portrait, by Yuqi Wang, was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 2023, his portrait, by Kerry James Marshall, was hung at the Fitzwilliam Museum at The University of Cambridge.
He was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in his junior year. In July, 2024, he was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.
Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including from his alma mater, the University of Cambridge, and most recently, The London School of Economics.
Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998 he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal.
In 2001, he discovered the first novel written by a Black female author, “The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” by Hannah Craft.
A published author, Gate’s most recent books include “The Black Box: Writing Race,” “Stony Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow” and “The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song.” In addition, Gates delves into the details of coming of age in Piedmont, West Virginia, during the 1950s and 1960s in “Colored People: A Memoir.”
Gates has also produced and hosted a plethora of documentary films including his executively produced and Emmy-nominated documentary Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO). His latest historical work for PBS includes history series “Gospel and Making Black America: Through the Grapevine.” In addition, Gates has produced “The Black Church” (PBS) and “Finding Your Roots,” Gate’s genealogy and genetics series which is in its tenth season on PBS.
Tickets for “A Conversation with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” are $97.40 including taxes and fees.
Tickets are available by calling 304–696–6656 or through ticketmaster.com. You may also visit the Joan C. Edwards Box Office on the campus of Marshall University from noon–4 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Marshall Artists Series accepts all major credit cards.