On March 22, 2002, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. delivered the 31st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the Ronald Reagan Interational Trade Center.

Past Jefferson Lecturers include Arthur Miller, James McPherson, Caroline Walker Bynum, Bernard Bailyn, Stephen Toulmin, Toni Morrison, Vincent Scully, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bernard Knox, Walker Percy, Cleanth Brooks, Sydney Hook, Barbara Tuchman, Saul Bellow, John Hope Franklin, Robert Penn Warren, Erik Erikson, and Lionel Trilling.

The Jefferson Lecture was established in 1972 as the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities.

The Sara Lee Corporation is the principal underwriter of the Jefferson Lecture during 1999-2003.

The online version of Humanities magazine features interviews with and profiles of the following Jefferson Lecturers: Caroline Walker Bynum, Bernard Bailyn, and Stephen Toulmin. The text of the lectures given by Caroline Walker Bynum, and Bernard Bailyn and web features about James McPherson and Arthur Miller are also available.