Harriet Tubman Prize

Accepting Nominations: 2020 Harriet Tubman Prize

2020 Harriet Tubman Prize The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the opening of the competition for the 2020 Harriet Tubman…

2019 Harriet Tubman Prize Winner: Kevin Dawson’s Undercurrents of Power

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is delighted to announce that Dr. Kevin Dawson is the winner…

2019 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists

2019 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the finalists of the annual Harriet Tubman Prize.…

2018 Harriet Tubman Prize Winner

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is delighted to announce that Dr. Tamara J. Walker is the winner of the 2018 Harriet Tubman Prize…

2018 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists

2018 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the finalists of the annual Harriet Tubman Prize. In…

2017 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the finalists of the 2017 annual Harriet Tubman Prize. The prize of $7,500 is…

2018 Harriet Tubman Prize

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the third edition of the Harriet Tubman Prize, which will be awarded to a distinguished…

Aisha Finch’s Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba Wins the Lapidus Center’s First Annual Harriet Tubman Prize

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is delighted to announce that Aisha K. Finch’s Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies…

2016 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists

New York – October 3, 2016. The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery is pleased to announce the finalists of the first annual Harriet Tubman…

The Harriet Tubman Prize is awarded annually to a distinguished nonfiction book published in the United States on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World. A Readers’ Committee of scholars…

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery—funded by a generous $2.5 million gift from Ruth and Sid Lapidus matched by The New York Public Library—is the only facility of its kind based in a public research library.

The initial gift also included 400 rare items of printed material, making the Schomburg Center home to one of the world’s premier collections of slavery material. Sid Lapidus continues to donate items as he acquires them.

The Center's mission is to generate and disseminate scholarly knowledge on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery pertaining to the Atlantic World. The Center supports the work of researchers with long-term and short-term fellowships. Given the centrality of Atlantic slavery to the making of the modern world, the Lapidus fellowships ensure that slavery studies are a cornerstone of the Schomburg Center’s broader research community.

To raise awareness and historical literacy, the Lapidus Center engages the public with a variety of programs, an annual nonfiction prize, exhibitions, conferences, and partnerships with local, national, and international institutions.

Dr. Michelle Commander
Associate Director and Curator