Henry Louis Gates Explores Black Culture in Latin America

Henry Louis Gates Explores Black Culture in Latin America: This past spring, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. produced a four-episode series for PBS tracing the legacy of the slave trade in six Caribbean and Latin American countries. 'Black in Latin America' is the book companion to the television series of the same title.

The reason for Gates' journey is a startling fact: Of the roughly 11 million Africans who survived the trans-Atlantic slave trade, just 450,000 made it to the United States. The rest were dispersed throughout the region, and Gates, renowned for his African-American studies, wanted to know how their descendants live now.

More than an outline of the research featured in the series, Gates' book is a thoughtful travelogue through Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Brazil.