Henry Louis Gates Jr Interview: Meeting with the Officer who Wrongfully Arrested Me

Henry Louis “Skip” Gates details being arrested on July 16, 2009 when he was mistakenly suspected of breaking into his own home and says he felt touched when Barack Obama spoke on the story in a press conference. Gates discusses Obama inviting him to the White House for a Beer Summit and later having a one-on-one meeting with Officer Crowley, the policeman who arrested him, and the larger issue of addressing police brutality.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, and cultural critic, known for his pioneering theories of African and African American literature. He is currently the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, having held this title since 2006, as well as the Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He was first recruited to Harvard in 1991 to serve as the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities. Gates has authored and co-authored 24 books, and has produced and hosted over 20 documentary films including the PBS series "Finding Your Roots.". The recipient of 56 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998, he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. In 2009, Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, which spawned an acerbic national debate around racial profiling as well as public criticism of the Cambridge police department by President Obama.

From the 2021 three-part HBO documentary series Obama: In Pursuit Of A More Perfect Union. The personal and political journey of President Barack Obama is explored that weaves together conversations with colleagues, friends, and critics, alongside his own speeches and interviews.

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Henry Louis Gates Jr., Professor
Interviewed By: Peter Kunhardt
Interview Date: January 19, 2019

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