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Lapidus Center at the Schomburg Center Announces 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists

By Lisa Herndon, Manager, Schomburg Communications and Publications
November 13, 2023
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Authors Kerri K. Greenidge, R. Isabela Morales, Jesse Olsavsky, and Jori Lewis are finalists for the Lapidus Center 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize. 

Kerri K. Greenidge, R. Isabela Morales, Jesse Olsavsky, and Jori Lewis are finalists for the Lapidus Center's 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize. 

Congratulations to Professors Kerri K. Greenidge (Tufts University) and Jesse Olsavsky (Duke Kunshan University), award-winning author and historian R. Isabela Morales, and writer Jori Lewis. The four are finalists for the 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize.

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Slavery at the Schomburg Center honors the best nonfiction book on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World published in the U.S. during the previous year.

Nominated titles are The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835-1861, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History, respectively.

Finalists were selected by a jury of librarians and scholars. The winner will be announced in January and receive $7,500.

  • The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

    by Kerri K. Greenidge

    The book presents a counternarrative of the legendary abolitionist Grimke sisters that finally reclaims the forgotten Black members of their family.

  • Book cover: Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History

    Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History

    by Jori Lewis

    The text reveals a lyrical and powerful story that weaves together the natural and human history of a crop that transformed the lives of millions.

  • Book Cover: Happy Dream of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom

    Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom

    by R. Isabela Morales

    The book tells the story of a poignant, multi-generational saga of a mixed-race family in the U.S. West and South from the antebellum period through the rise of Jim Crow.

  • Book cover: The Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861

    The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861

    by Jesse Olsavsky

    The text tells the dramatic story of how vigilance committees organized the Underground Railroad and revolutionized the abolitionist movement. 

 

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