LeVar Burton

Photo of Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Judy Dater

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. 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.

LeVar Burton, multi-award winning actor, director and education advocate, is best known to television audiences around the world for his portrayals of two iconic characters—Kunte Kinte in “Roots” and Geordi LaForge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”—and for his 23 years as producer and host of the beloved PBS series “Reading Rainbow.” Burton is co-founder of the award-winning Reading Rainbow digital library, which has produced the #1 educational app and has just introduced SKYBRARY, the next generation of innovative children’s educational media on the web. He is co-Executive Producer of the upcoming multi-part remake of “Roots” and has received the Eliot-Pearson Award for Excellence in Children’s Media from Tufts University, the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Innovator’s Award, and the 2015 Chicago Tribune Young Adult Literary Award. Burton is also the author of the new children’s book, The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm.

TICKETS

Pre-registration is required. Tickets will not be sold at the door and walk-ins will not be permitted.

SAFETY & SECURITY

• Check out a list of items that attendees will not be permitted to bring into the event. Attendees who attempt to bring such items will be asked to return them to their vehicle. LMU will not hold or be responsible for any of these items. 
• Prior to entering the venue, guests will be screened (wand and bag checks) to ensure that none of the restricted items enter the venue. If guests need to exit the venue, they will be rescreened before reentering the venue.
• Please arrive early to allow enough time to move through security and enter the venue. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m.
• LMU Campus Safety is available 24/7 for safety and security concerns and can be reached at 310.338.2893. 

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 through the main campus entrance at Lincoln Blvd. and LMU Drive. Click here for a map of the campus. Parking will be available in P2 & P3 of University Hall Parking Garage with shuttles running from the UHall flag poles to Hilton. For Monday-Friday parking rates and pay station instructions, click here.