Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012, on PBS. In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled with information researched by professional genealogists that allows them to view their ancestral histories, learn about familial connections and discover secrets about their lineage.
Title card from the second season
Henry Louis Gates Jr. 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. 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.
Gates in 2013
Gates in 2007
Gates, Sgt. James Crowley and President Barack Obama toast at the start of their meeting in the White House Rose Garden, July 30, 2009
Gates speaks on a panel about race in America on the Understanding Our World Stage at the National Book Festival on August 31, 2019