New Haven, Connecticut, December 16, 2025— Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition today announces the winner of the twenty-seventh annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, one of the most acclaimed awards for global studies of slavery, opposition to it, and the experiences and resistance of enslaved people.

The 2025 Prize will be awarded to Justene Hill Edwards for Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank (W. W. Norton and Company). Hill Edwards is an associate professor of History at the University of Virginia.

James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, describes Savings and Trust as one of the most important books ever to win the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. “Rigorously researched and beautifully written,” Basker notes, “the book tells a little-remembered but deeply tragic story about a financial disaster that set Black people back for generations and compounded the wealth gap that still haunts our country today. It is a must-read for everyone who cares about economic history and racial equality.”

This annual prize, jointly sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC) at Yale University, recognizes the best book written in English on the topics of slavery, resistance, or abolition copyrighted in the preceding year. The $25,000 prize will be presented to Hill Edwards at an award ceremony sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute at Trinity Church in New York City on February 12, 2026.

Juanita DeBarros, chair of the jury for this year’s award, praises Savings and Trust for its clear explanation of the complicated world of nineteenth-century banking and finance and the political and economic context within which the Freedman’s Bank was established and collapsed. The book, DeBarros observes, “moves between the stories of the individual African American women and men who used the bank, well-known figures such as Frederick Douglass, and the white trustees whose actions led to its collapse.” Hill Edwards demonstrates that “the bank was a ‘source of dignity’ for the Black people who used it and highlights the experiences of Black women who used the bank to achieve their own economic and social goals.” DeBarros is a Professor of History and Director of the McMaster University Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice.

At the award ceremony, the three other finalists for the prize also will be recognized. These are Keidrick Roy for American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism (Princeton University Press), Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré for Slavery, Resistance, and Identity in Early Modern West Africa: The Ethnic-State of Gajaaga (Cambridge University Press), and Gloria McCahon Whiting for Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England (University of Pennsylvania Press). 

“To be nominated for the Frederick Douglass prize is a significant accomplishment in itself,” notes review committee member Edward Rugemer. “It means that of the more than eighty books on slavery submitted, the jury decided that these four rank among the very best. Each of these books,” he continued, “makes a signal contribution to their respective fields within the encompassing subject of Atlantic World slavery and its legacies.” Rugemer is a professor of history and Black studies at Yale University.

From a total of eighty-eight submissions, the finalists were selected by a jury that included Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist, and Toby Green, professor of precolonial and Lusophone African history and culture, King’s College, London, in addition to Professor DeBarros.

The Frederick Douglass Book Prize was established by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center in 1999 to stimulate scholarship in the field by honoring outstanding accomplishments and bringing noteworthy books to a wider readership among the general public. The award is named for Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), an enslaved person who escaped bondage to emerge as one of the great American abolitionists, reformers, writers, and orators of the nineteenth century.

The mission of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition is to support academic excellence in the study of slavery and its enduring legacies, make this knowledge freely available to the public, and foster work toward social justice. The GLC was launched in 1998 through the support of philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman and is affiliated with the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. Through contributions from a circle of individual donors, the GLC supports research fellowships, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, scholarly working groups, publications, free public programs, and educational workshops for secondary school teachers and students, domestic and international. For further information and to find out how you can support the continuing work of the GLC, visit https://macmillan.yale.edu/glc/gilder-lehrman-center-legacy-fund, e-mail: gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu, or call (203) 432-3339.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, visionaries and lifelong supporters of American history education. The Institute is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to K–12 history education while also serving the general public. Its mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is supported through the generosity of individuals, corporations, and foundations. The Institute’s programs have been recognized by awards from the White House, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Organization of American Historians, the Council of Independent Colleges, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. For further information, visit gilderlehrman.org or call (646) 366-9666.

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