Henry Louis Gates Jr. Receives duPont Award for The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

The Rootโ€™s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was one of 14 recipients Tuesday night of an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, with Gates honored for his PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The six-part documentary explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies,…

The Rootโ€™s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was one of 14 recipients Tuesday night of an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, with Gates honored for his PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The six-part documentary explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developedโ€”forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
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โ€œJust thinking about the events at Ferguson, Staten Island and the Black Lives Matter campaign, itโ€™s clear to see that the great span of black history has never had more relevance than it does right now,โ€ Gates said during his acceptance speech.ย โ€œMaya Angelou put it best when she said that โ€˜history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived but, if faced with courage, need not be lived again.โ€™โ€ย 

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross has also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Programmingโ€”Long Form, the Peabody Award and an NAACP Image Award and is currently available on DVD.

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