POSTPONED: 2026 John A. Payton '73 Distinguished Lectureship featuring Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 4:00 PM

Bridges Auditorium

Man wearing tan blazer over blue shirt with glasses and hands in pocket This event has been postponed. A new date will be announced soon. Please check back for updates. The ninth annual John A. Payton '73 Distinguished Lectureship: https://www.pomona.edu/payton-lectureship will feature Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, in conversation with Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Arthur M. and Fanny M. Dole Professor of English at Pomona College. About Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. An Emmy, Du Pont, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder, he has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films, including the popular genealogy series Finding Your Roots (PBS). His latest book, The Black Box: Writing the Race (Penguin Random House, 2024), was named one of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year. Gates is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including from his undergraduate alma mater, Yale University, his graduate alma mater, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford. A member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, Gates became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal, conferred by President Clinton in 1998. His other awards include the PEN Audible Literary Service Award, the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the Barry Prize, the Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Literary Scholarship, the Modern Language Association’s Phyllis Franklin Award for Public Advocacy of the Humanities, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal. Gates is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an International Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. The Pomona College Board of Trustees endowed the John A. Payton ’73 Distinguished Lectureship: https://www.pomona.edu/payton-lectureship in memory of John Payton's life and influential career, and in honor of David W. Oxtoby, ninth president of Pomona College.

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