Jeffrey Stewart Wins Pulitzer Prize
Jeffrey Stewart, who teaches in UCSB’s Black Studies department, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for his book The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. The award was announced on April 15 during the 50th anniversary of the Department of Black Studies, which Stewart chaired from 2008 to 2016. Prior to Stewart’s prize-winning publication, Locke was fading into archival memory despite his historic role as an advocate for African and African-American art, the Harlem Renaissance, and as mentor to Langston Hughes. Stewart said of the title, “I think about his achievement, and what that was to create a family among writers and artists and dancers and dramatists, and call them The New Negro. The basis for a new creative future — and not just for black people. A new negro, for new America.”
