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 pocketThe 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. 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. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates’s most recent books are The Black Box: Writing the Race, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He has also produced and hosted an array of documentary films. The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, each received Emmy nominations. His latest history series for PBS are Gospel and Making Black America: Through the Grapevine. Finding Your Roots, Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is in its tenth season on PBS. 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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