Liberty Legacy Foundation Award


The Liberty Legacy Foundation Award is an annual book award given by the Organization of American Historians. The award goes to the best book written by a professional historian on the fights for civil rights in the United States anytime from 1776 to the present. Dr. Darlene Clark Hine challenged American historians to research and write on those civil rights episodes taking place in the United States before 1954 in her 2002 OAH presidential speech. A committee of three OAH members, chosen by the OAH president, make the selection. As of 2018, the committee chair is Paul Ortiz, with both Carol Anderson and Charles McKinney rounding out the committee. The Award Winner receives a monetary prize that ranges $1000 and $2000. In the Award's first year, a single Winner and six Finalists were named. In 2004, two Winners were named. In 2006 and 2017, one Winner and one Honorable Mention were named for each year. In 2008, one Winner and two Finalists were named.

List of Award Winners

In the table below, the link on the "Author" is to the latest biographical site found. The link on the "Affiliation" is the author's workplace at the time of the award.
YearAuthorAffiliationTitlePublisher
2018Ula Yvette TaylorUC BerkeleyThe Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of IslamUniversity of North Carolina Press
2017Russell J. RickfordCornell UniversityWe Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical ImaginationOxford University Press
2016Tanisha C. FordUMass AmherstLiberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of SoulUniversity of North Carolina Press
2015N. B. D. ConnollyJohns Hopkins UniversityA World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South FloridaUniversity of Chicago Press
2014Susan D. CarleAmerican UniversityDefining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880–1915Oxford University Press
2013Andrew W. KahrlMarquette UniversityThe Land Was Ours: African American Beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt SouthHarvard University Press
2012Tomiko Brown-NaginUniversity of VirginiaCourage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights MovementOxford University Press
2011Chad L. WilliamsHamilton CollegeTorchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I EraUniversity of North Carolina Press
2010Beryl SatterRutgers–NewarkFamily Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban AmericaMetropolitan Books
2009Chris Myers AschU.S. Public Service AcademyThe Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou HamerThe New Press
2008Michael HoneyUniversity of WashingtonGoing Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last CampaignW. W. Norton & Company
2007Thomas F. JacksonUNC GreensboroFrom Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Economic JusticeUniversity of Pennsylvania Press
2006Matthew J. CountrymanUniversity of MichiganUp South: Civil Rights and Black Power in PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press
2005Nikhil Pal SinghUniversity of WashingtonBlack is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for DemocracyHarvard University Press
2004
Co-Winner
Robert Rodgers KorstadDuke UniversityCivil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth Century SouthUniversity of North Carolina Press
2004
Co-Winner
Barbara RansbyUICElla Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic VisionUniversity of North Carolina Press
2003J. Mills Thornton IIIUniversity of MichiganDividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and SelmaUniversity of Alabama Press

List of Award Finalists and Honorable Mentions