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THE STORY OF HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.: SCHOLAR, HISTORIAN, LITERARY CRITIC AND CHRONICLER OF BLACK AMERICA

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A Life Dedicated to Recovering History Few contemporary American intellectuals have done as much to connect African American literature, history, genealogy, cultural criticism, and public education as Henry Louis Gates Jr. Born in 1950 in Piedmont, West Virginia, Gates emerged from a small Appalachian community to become one of the most influential scholars of African American history and literature in the United States. His career has crossed the boundaries separating the university from popular culture. He has been a literary critic, historian, editor, professor, institution builder, filmmaker, genealogist, television host, and public intellectual. Today, Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Harvard describes him as a native of Piedmont, West Virginia, who earned a history degree from Yale University and subsequently completed his master's and doctoral degrees in...
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How Condoleezza Rice Broke Political Barriers

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  How Condoleezza Rice Broke Political Barriers The history of American politics is also a history of barriers—barriers created by race, gender, social class, geography, and assumptions about who is qualified to exercise political power. For much of the twentieth century, the highest levels of American government were dominated by white men. Women gradually entered positions of influence, and African Americans increasingly gained political representation, but the intersection of being both Black and female remained a particularly formidable barrier. Condoleezza Rice emerged from this historical environment to become one of the most influential African American women in modern American public life. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1954, she grew up during the era of segregation and the civil-rights struggle. Her subsequent career took her from academic life at Stanford University into the highest levels of U.S. national-security and foreign-policy decision-making. She became Stan...
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