[1] From 1996 to 1997, Gaines served as a National Humanities Center fellow, during which time he published several essays as well as a monograph entitled "African American Expatriates in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1957-1966.
[4] In 1997, Gaines was awarded the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize from the American Studies Association (ASA) for his book Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century,[5] which had originally been written as his graduate dissertation.
[5] Gaines’ second book, African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era, was selected as one of Choice’s Outstanding Academic Titles in 2006.
[8] He was additionally a member of the Public Voices Fellowship program, a campaign designed to share the work of underrepresented thinkers in academia.
[12] In 2020, he testified as an expert witness regarding the removal of a statue of Confederate States General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia,[13][14] arguing instead for the establishment of a memorial to enslaved people in its place.