Henry Louis Jr

The current generation of black intellectuals has produced a prodigious number of books and articles. What follows is a sample of the most notable: * "Afrocentricity" (1987), Moleffi Assante: the bible of the Afrocentric movement which attempts to prove that the source of civilization is Africa. * "Faces at the Bottom of the Well" (1993), Derrick Bell: a New York University law professor and social critic argues that racism is a permanent fixture in American life.

Young black and Latino men lag behind their contemporaries in nearly every measure of educational attainment, with many failing to attend college or earn degrees and large numbers facing the prospect of unemployment or incarceration. The findings are included in two reports released at a briefing Monday by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center. It was hosted by Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research in Cambridge, Mass. The reports cull census data, academic research and in-depth interviews to paint a bleak picture of the educational experiences of young men across four racial and ethnic groups: African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Latinos and Native Americans.

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. put an end to a widely watched academic tug-of-war Wednesday, announcing he would remain as head of Harvard University's black studies department rather than follow two prominent colleagues to Princeton. "This is for good," Gates said. "It's to rest. It's final." Professors Cornel West and K. Anthony Appiah were lured away by Princeton earlier this year. West left after a dispute with new Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

I look forward to reading Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s book "America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues With African Americans," but I was disappointed by the excerpt ("Inside Black Hollywood," Jan. 4). Contrary to Gates' assertion, Hollywood is long on history, and for many important players in Hollywood, Harvard is not "a million miles away." The essence of the excerpt seemed to be who holds power in Hollywood, and that as of 2004 blacks still lack power. But many of those who do have it were educated at places such as Harvard, Boston University, Emerson College and other East Coast universities.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African American scholars, was arrested last week at his home near Harvard University after trying to force open the locked front door. According to a Cambridge Police Department report, Gates allegedly accused officers of being racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America." The incident was first reported by the Harvard Crimson school newspaper. Gates, the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, has been away from his home much of the summer while working on a documentary, said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and friend of Gates who is working as his lawyer.

The book "Colored People" by Henry Louis Gates Jr., reviewed in the Book Review May 8 is a disappointment to black Americans. It is unthinkable that a descendant of African slaves and chairman of the department of the Afro-American studies at Harvard University would, in the '90s, write a book in which he says to his two daughters: "In your lifetime, I suspect, you will go from being African Americans to 'people of color,' to being, once again...

Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress whose simple act of defiance on a segregated Montgomery bus in 1955 stirred the nonviolent protests of the modern civil rights movement and catapulted an unknown minister named Martin Luther King Jr. to international prominence, died Monday of natural causes at her home in Detroit. She was 92.

Consider Eugenia Jennings of Illinois a poster child for American injustice. At the age of 23, the mother of three was arrested for trading just under 14 grams of crack cocaine for designer clothing. Because the federal government has imposed a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and because Jennings had been convicted previously for dealing tiny amounts of crack, she was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.

Gayle Pollard-Terry's article about the Civil War film "Cold Mountain" ("Film Inaccurate in Its Lack of Blacks, Online Campaign Says," Feb. 4) leaves out some critical facts. The film is largely about the women left behind and one man who refuses to continue to fight.