Frederick Douglass Book Prize

Each year’s prize accepts submissions of books copyrighted in the previous year. Works related to the Civil War are acceptable only if their primary focus relates to slavery or emancipation. Invitations for submissions and submission guidelines typically are announced in January or early February, with a late April or early May deadline. To request the submission guidelines, send an inquiry with Frederick Douglass Book Prize in the subject line to: gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu

New Haven, Conn.— Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition today has announced the winners of the twenty-sixth annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, one of the most coveted awards for the study of the African American experience.

The 2024 Prize will be shared by two scholars. The co-winners are 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).

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, shared by the two winners, will be presented to Daut and Johnson at an award ceremony sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute at Trinity Church in New York City on February 11, 2025.