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 50^th 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.”