Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery

The Lapidus Center offers long- and short-term fellowships to researchers who receive access to the Center's collections, opportunities to disseminate their work across Library channels, and monetary support.

Meet the 2022–2023 cohort of fellows.

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center is pleased to announce the opening of the competition for the 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize. The prize awards $7,500 to the best nonfiction book published in the U.S. on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World. The postmark deadline for nominating titles is December 31, 2022. If there are any questions, please contact lapiduscenter@nypl.org.

If you are a researcher studying the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World, consider applying to the short and long-term fellowships at the Lapidus Center. Fellows receive access to the Center's collections, opportunities to disseminate their work across Library channels, and monetary support. The deadline to apply is Monday, January 9, 2023.

On October 4 starting at 2 PM, experience a rare opportunity to view the court records of Sojourner Truth's historic 1828 legal victory to free her son from enslavement in our one-day pop-up exhibit. Plus, view a copy of Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828 by Sojourner Truth and Olive Gilbert from the collection of our founder Arturo Schomburg. The text offers Truth's personal account of the case. The pop-up exhibit is in support of the our program, Uncovered: Sojourner Truth's Quest for Liberty and Justice, taking place at the Schomburg Center on the same day at 6:30 PM. 

This panel discussion is in collaboration with the Historical Society of the New York Courts, the New York State Archives, and the New York State Unified Court System. (Court papers: New York State Archives. New York (State). Supreme Court of Judicature (Utica). Writs of Habeas Corpus, 1807-1832. J0029-82. Box 3)

Congratulations to Edward Ball (Independent Scholar and Historian), Arielle X. Alterwaite (Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History, University of Pennsylvania), and Dr. David Luis-Brown (Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and English, Claremont Graduate University). Using the Schomburg Center’s extensive collections, each will examine slavery across the Atlantic world. 

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is pleased to announce that Dr. Vincent Brown is the winner of the 2021 Harriet Tubman Prize for his book Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War. The Harriet Tubman Prize awards $7,500 to the best nonfiction book published in the United States on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World. 

Dr. Brown is the Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. 

(Photo of Dr. Vincent Brown by Stephanie Mitchell)