Laurence Fishburne

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 has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films. The Black Church (PBS) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO), which he executive produced, have each received Emmy nominations. His latest history series for PBS is Making Black America: Through the Grapevine. Finding Your Roots, Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is now in its ninth season on PBS.

Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. 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.

A native of Piedmont, West Virginia, Gates earned his B.A. in History, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at Cambridge in 1979, where he is also an Honorary Fellow.  He is the co-founder of The Root.com.  A former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and serves on a wide array of boards, including the New York Public Library, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Aspen Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of America, and The Studio Museum of Harlem. In 2011, his portrait, by Yuqi Wang, was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Laurence J. Fishburne III starred in his first television show at 10 in the drama One Life to Live, and made his feature film debut at 12 in Cornbread, Earl and Me. At 15, Laurence appeared in Apocalypse Now, the first of many cult classics destined to define his long career.

Fishburne’s versatile acting has won him awards in theatre, film, and television. In 1992, Fishburne won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Sterling Johnson in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. He won his first Emmy Award in 1993 for “The Box” episode of TriBeCa and his second as producer for Miss Evers’ Boys in 1997. In 1994, Laurence received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the Tina Turner biopic, What’s Love Got to Do with It. He was an Emmy Award nominee and an NAACP Image Award winner for his starring role in the 1997 telefilm Miss Evers’ Boys, which he also executive-produced. Laurence has been nominated 25 times for NAACP Image awards, with seven wins—most recently in 2020 for “Outstanding Performance in a Short Form Series” for #FreeRayshawn. His most recent Emmy win was also for his role in Quibi’s #FreeRayshawn.

Laurence may be best known for his role as Morpheus in the Wachowski siblings’ blockbuster The Matrix trilogy, but his many film credits include Boyz n the Hood, A Rumor of War, The Color Purple, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Higher Learning, Mystic River, and cult classics, Deep Cover and King of New York.

In 2000, Fishburne founded Cinema Gypsy Productions with his longtime manager and producing partner, Helen Sugland. They have produced numerous award-winning projects including Thurgood, Five Fingers, Akeelah and the Bee, Once in the Life, Always Outnumbered, Hoodlum, and Miss Evers’ Boys. They produced the ABC-TV hit series black-ish, where Laurence starred alongside Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as its current Freeform spinoff, grown-ish and ABC spinoff, mixed-ish. black-ish has received multiple Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Golden Globe nominations for Best Television Series–Musical or Comedy. Their latest animated series is Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur for Disney, now on its second season; the show received five Children’s and Family Emmy Awards. Up next, Laurence is an EP on a new TV series Cookies & Milk and will voice act in Sneaks.

In 2016, Fishburne starred in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and A&E’s miniseries remake of Roots. Laurence received a 2016 Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Narrator as Alex Haley for Roots. Fishburne also appeared in Passengers in December 2016. Fishburne was recently seen in Running with the Devil; Where’d You Go, Bernadette; Quibi’s movie in chapter #FreeRayshawn; The Ice Road; and Peacock series MacGruber. From 2021–2022, Fishburne starred in American Buffalo on Broadway. In 2023, he starred in Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil and was an executive producer of The Cave of Adullam which can be streamed on ESPN+. Laurence also resumed his role in John Wick: Chapter 4. Next, he will star in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, new film The Astronaut, FX’s limited series Clipped, and Netflix hit series The Witcher.

TICKETS AND SEATING

Tickets are not required. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

DIRECTIONS

Driving directions to LMU are available. Please use the main LMU entrance at Lincoln and LMU Drive. PDF Campus Map | Interactive Campus Map 

PARKING

Please enter campus via Lincoln Boulevard. Parking will be available in Drollinger Parking Plaza and Lot-A, Hannon Parking Lot. We recommend arriving at least 30 minutes before the start of the presentation to allow time for parking and locating the event. 

Please note that LMU charges visitors to park. Pay kiosks are located in each lot. You will need your license plate number to register your vehicle at the kiosk. Parking and rate information is available.