Frederick Douglass Book Prize

On Tuesday, January 31, Jeff Forret, Professor of History, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, received the 2016 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for Slave Against Slave: Plantation Violence in the Old South, in a ceremony at the Yale Club. The prize, awarded by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, honors the best scholarly book on the subject of slavery or abolition. Slave Against Slave explores violence among enslaved people in the South prior to the Civil War and how these physical conflicts were affected by hierarchies within the slave community. In his remarks, Forret spoke of the importance of digging into historical documents with an open mind. "Ask uncomfortable questions," he advised budding historians. "Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty in archives."

Click through the slideshow below to see photos from the event!