Gaither (Edmund Barry) is born in Great Falls, South Carolina.

Barry Gaither graduates from Morehouse College, receives a master’s degree from Brown University, and comes to Boston to become a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in 1969. He becomes founding director of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, where he serve today, teaches at at number of colleges, including Wellesley College, Harvard University, and Boston University, and serves on a number of national panels commissioning the creation of African-American art.