Apr

2019 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Smithsonian alumni

Jeffrey Conrad Stewart, former director of research at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, has been awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, his definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance.

Jeffrey C. Stewart received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for his book, “The New Negro.”

Meticulously researched, the book explores Locke’s professional and private life–from his early education, which included becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, to his promotion of black culture and the literary and artistic work of African Americans, shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts.

The Pulitzer award follows Stewart winning the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2018.

Formal portrait against white background

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Conrad Stewart

Now a professor of Black Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and chair of the Black Studies Department, Stewart has spent his career studying the issues of race and culture as they relate to art, history, literature, music, and philosophy.

His previous books include 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History and Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in philosophy, Stewart received his doctorate in American studies from Yale University. He became director of research at the Anacostia Museum, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and a senior advisor to the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was also a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Rome III, a W.E.B. Du Bois and a Charles Warren Fellow at Harvard University, and lecturer at the Terra Foundation for American art in Giverny, France.

The author of numerous articles, essays and books, Stewart has additionally taught at Harvard University, Yale, UCLA, Tufts University, Howard University, Scripps College, and George Mason University.