Published: May 19, 2009 10:26 pm      

Piedmont native receives top public broadcasting honor

Gates given Lowell award

CUMBERLAND — Henry Louis Gates Jr. is this year’s winner of the Ralph Lowell Award, public television’s most prestigious honor.

Gates, a native of Piedmont, W.Va., is a professor at Alphonse Fletcher University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American research at Harvard University. The award was announced Tuesday by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in New York City.

Gates is the producer, writer and host of the critically acclaimed PBS documentaries “African American Lives,” “Oprah’s Roots: An African American Lives Special” and “African American Lives 2.”

He was the first filmmaker to employ genealogy and genetic science to provide an understanding of African-American history, according to CPB.

Other PBS programs by Gates include “Great Rail Journeys: From Great Zimbabwe to Kilimatinde,” “Frontline: The Two Nations of Black America,” “Leaving Cleaver,” “Wonders of the African World” and “America Beyond the Color Line.”

His most recent film, “Looking for Lincoln,” received significant praise when it aired on PBS earlier this year. The special addressed the many controversies surrounding Abraham Lincoln — race, equality, religion, politics and depression — to offer a fresh look at America’s 16th president.

Gates is currently in production on his next PBS project, “Faces of America,” which will expand the role DNA science played in the “African American Lives” series to take the exploration of identity to a new level.

He is also editor-in-chief of TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine, and of the Oxford African American Studies Center, an online scholarly resource. In 2008, he co-edited the eight-volume biographical dictionary, “The African American National Biography.”

Gates is the author of several works of literary criticism, including “The Signifying Monkey,” winner of the 1989 American Book Award, and a memoir, “Colored People.” His most recent books include “In Search of Our Roots,” which expands on interviews he conducted for his multipart PBS series, and “Abraham Lincoln on Race and Slavery,” a collection he edited of Lincoln’s writings and speeches about slavery and race.

The Ralph Lowell Award is named after the late Boston philanthropist, banker and founder of WGBH Educational Foundation. Recipients are chosen for their extraordinary leadership at the national level and education and professional development.