Frederick Douglass Book Prize

Frederick Douglass Book Prize

In partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, the Institute awards an annual prize of $25,000 for an outstanding non-fiction book in English published on the subject of slavery, resistance, and/or abolition.

The prize was first awarded in 1999 to Ira Berlin and Philip Morgan.
 

Image: Buttre, J. C., engraver. “Frederick Douglass.” In Frederick Douglass. My Bondage and My Freedom. Auburn, NY: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855. Engraving based on a daguerreotype. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05820.)

An engraving of Frederick Douglass as a young man, wearing a double-breasted jacket, vest or waistcoat, and scarf, looking fiercely into the camera

2025 Finalists

From a total of 80 submissions, four finalists were selected by a jury of scholars that included Juanita De Barros (chair), Professor of History and Director, McMaster University Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice; Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist; and Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture, King’s College, London. Noting the challenge of selecting a small list of finalists from the large number of "haunting and powerfully written books" submitted, the three jurors thanked all of the authors and their publishers for their "belief in the importance of this subject and the dedication with which their collective work ensures the vitality of this crucial field of history in these painful times."

The winner will be announced following the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Review Committee meeting in the December, and the award will be presented at a celebration at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City on February 12, 2026. The event will be free and open to the public. Write to events@gilderlehrman.org to inquire about attending.
 

Book Cover: Freedman's Bank Savings and Trust by Justene Hill Edwards
Book Cover: American Dark Age by Keidrick Roy
Book Cover: Slavery, Resistance and Identity in Early Modern West Africa by Makhroufi Ousmane Treore
Book Cover: Belonging by Gloria McCahon Whiting

 

 


The 2025 Finalists:
Justene Hill Edwards for Savings and Trust: The Rise and Fall of the Freedman’s Bank (W. W. Norton and Company)

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)

Gloria McCahon Whiting for Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England (University of
Pennsylvania Press)

2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners

The twenty-sixth annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize is shared by two scholars: Marlene L. Daut for Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution (University of North Carolina Press) and Sara E. Johnson for Encyclopédie noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Intellectual World (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press).

The winners were presented with their awards at a ceremony sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute at Trinity Church in New York City on February 11, 2025.

Submissions

We are interested in all geographical areas and time periods. Please note that works related to the Civil War are acceptable only if their primary focus relates to slavery or emancipation. Publishers and authors are invited to submit books that meet these criteria.

The submission deadline for books published in 2024 was May 2, 2025. Books with a copyright date between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025 are eligible for consideration for the 2026 Frederick Douglass Book Prize. Entries will be accepted during the first few months of 2026. For further details on submission requirements, visit the Gilder Lehrman Center website or write to gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu with the subject heading: FDBP 2026.

Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners

Year Author Title
2024 Marlene L. Daut Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution (University of North Carolina Press)
  Sara E. Johnson Encyclopédie noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Intellectual World (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press)
2023 R. Isabela Morales Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford University Press)
  Simon P. Newman Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London (University of London Press)
2022 Tiya Miles All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House)
  Jennifer L. Morgan Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press)
2021 Vincent Brown Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
  Marjoleine Kars Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (The New Press)
2020 Sophie White Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press)
2019 Amy Murrell Taylor Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps (University of North Carolina Press)
2018 Erica Armstrong Dunbar Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (37Ink/Atria Books)
  Tiya Miles The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits (The New Press)
2017 Manisha Sinha The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale University Press)
2016 Jeff Forret Slave against Slave: Plantation Violence in the Old South (Louisiana State University Press)
2015 Ada Ferrer Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge University Press)
2014 Christopher Hager Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing (Harvard University Press)
2013 Sydney Nathans To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker (Harvard University Press)
2012 James Sweet Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (University of North Carolina Press)
2011 Stephanie McCurry Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South (Harvard University Press)
2010 Judith A. Carney & Richard Nicholas Rosomoff In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (University of California Press)
  Siddharth Kara Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (Columbia University Press)
2009 Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton)
2008 Stephanie E. Smallwood Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Harvard University Press)
2007 Christopher Leslie Brown Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press)
2006 Rebecca J. Scott Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery (Harvard University Press)
2005 Laurent Dubois A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press)
2004 Jean Fagan Yellin Harriet Jacobs: A Life (Basic Civitas Books)
2003 Seymour Drescher The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation (Oxford University Press)
2002 Robert W. Harms The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (Basic Books)
2001 David W. Blight Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press)
2000 David Eltis The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge University Press)
1999 Ira Berlin Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Harvard University Press)
  Philip Morgan Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (University of North Carolina Press)

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