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Laurent Dubois to receive $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize

NEW YORK – The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University, an organization sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, will present the Seventh Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize at a dinner at the Yale Club of New York on February 23, 2006.

Laurent Dubois, associate professor of history at Michigan State University, will be awarded the prize for his book, “A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804.” Focusing on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Dubois explores the slave revolts there that brought about the 1794 abolition of slavery.

The $25,000 award for the year’s best non-fiction book on slavery, resistance or abolition, is the most generous history prize in the field. The dinner will include remarks by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, co-founders of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and David Blight, Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center. The evening will also include a poetry reading by Yale student Natalie Paul and a musical performance by Haitian musician Erol Josue.

The Frederick Douglass Book Prize was established in 1999 to stimulate scholarship on slavery by honoring outstanding books. Previous winners include: Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, 1999; David Eltis, 2000; David Blight, 2001; Robert Harms and John Stauffer, 2002; James F. Brooks and Seymour Drescher, 2003; Jean Fagan Yellin, 2004.

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, a part of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, was launched at Yale in November 1998. Its mission is to promote the study of all aspects of slavery, in particular the chattel slave system, including African and African-American resistance to enslavement, abolitionist movements and the ways in which chattel slavery finally became outlawed.

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. Increasingly national and international in scope, the Institute targets audiences ranging from students to scholars to the general public. It creates history-centered schools and academic research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, partners with school districts to implement Teaching American History grants, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians.

The Institute also funds awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington Book Prizes and offers fellowships for scholars to work in history archives, including the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

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