Eight luminaries named W.E.B. Du Bois Medalists

The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research announced the 2024 cohort of W.E.B. Du Bois Medal honorees on Sept. 16. The eight recipients, who hail from across the world, will be recognized for their “significant contributions to African and African American history and culture.”

“The Hutchins Center recognizes the contributions of these eight Du Bois Medalists whose genius is evident not only in their respective fields but also in their unwavering commitments to combating racism, sexism, and xenophobia, to protecting the freedom of thought and expression, and to celebrating the rich history and cultures of people of African descent throughout our rich diaspora,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center.

This year’s Hutchins Center Honors recipients include actor, director, and education advocate LeVar Burton; civil rights advocate and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw; former Harvard Women’s Basketball Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith; director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem Thelma Golden; musician, songwriter, producer and actor Ice T; filmmaker, writer, producer, and professor Spike Lee; Vice President of Colombia Francia Elena Márquez Mina; and African entrepreneur and philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa.

“We honor an extraordinary group of individuals whose accomplishments have created new standards in academia, educations, sports, the arts, entertainment, and business,” Glenn H. Hutchins, co-founder of North Island and chairman of the National Advisory Board of the Hutchins Center said. “This is a group that inspires us all to persist in our work bending the arc of history toward justice.”

The W.E.B. Du Bois Medal is the highest honor given in the field of African and African American studies at Harvard. Honorees have included scholars, writers, philanthropists, journalists, artists, and public servants. Past recipients include writer and feminist Chimamanda Adichi (2022), entrepreneur Robert F. Smith (2019), athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick (2018), and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (2013).

The Hutchins Center launched in 2013 following a generous gift of more than $15 million from the Hutchins Family Foundation, which was endowed by Hutchins ’77, J.D. ’83, M.B.A. ’83. The center includes the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Center; the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art; the Afro-Latin American Research Institute; the Hiphop Archive & Research Institute; the History Design Studio; the Project on Race & Cumulative Adversity; the Project on Race & Gender in Science & Medicine; the Image of the Black Archive & Library; the Jazz Research Initiative; and two publications, the Du Bois Review and Transition.

This year’s ceremony will take place on Oct. 1 at 5 p.m. in Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Free tickets are available at the Harvard Box Office on Sept. 20 at noon.