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 finalists for the twenty-sixth annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, one of the most coveted awards for the study of the African American experience. 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 at Yale University’s MacMillan Center, this annual prize of $25,000 recognizes the best book written in English on the topics of slavery, resistance, or abolition copyrighted in the preceding year.

The finalists for the 2024 prize are: Kerri K. Greenidge for “The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family” (Liveright Publishing Corporation); 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); and Emily A. Owens for “Consent in the Presence of Force: Sexual Violence and Black Women’s Survival in Antebellum New Orleans” (University of North Carolina Press).

The winner will be announced following the Douglass Prize Review Committee meeting in the fall, and the award will be presented at a celebration at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City on February 11, 2025.