University at Buffalo: Reporter

Gates to kick off 1996-97 Distinguished Speakers

Leading African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. will kick off UB's 1996-97 Distinguished Speakers Series with a lecture at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 2, in the Center for the Arts Mainstage theater on the North Campus.

Other speakers in the series are Emmy-winning actor Edward James Olmos on Nov. 19 and Nobel and Pulitzer-Prizewinning author Toni Morrison on April 24.

A fierce defender of affirmative action, Gates is a prolific essayist on such diverse issues as the First Amendment, anti-Semitism, ethnic identity, rap music and what he considers a crisis in black leadership.

He is the Distinguished W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard University, where he also serves as a professor of English, chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies and director of the Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

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