Leon F. Litwack is an American historian and professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the 1980 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history for his book Been In the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. [1] 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ...

Biography

He was born in Santa Barbara, California in 1929, and received his B.A. in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1958 from the University of California at Berkeley. He has also taught at the universities of Wisconsin and South Carolina and at Colorado College.

Litwack's interest in history was sparked by The Growth of the American Republic, by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager. Litwack said, "The textbook was my first confrontation with history. I asked my 11th grade teacher for the opportunity to respond to the textbook’s version of Reconstruction, to what I thought were distortions and racial biases.(I had already read Howard Fast’s Freedom Road.) The research led me to the library—and to W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, with that intriguing subtitle: An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Armed with that book, I presented what I thought to be a persuasive rebuttal of the textbook."[2] RAdm Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976), USN historian Samuel Eliot Morison, RAdm, USNR (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian, notable for producing scholarly works that were both authoritative and highly readable, an ability recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes. ... Henry Steele Commager (October 25, 1902 - March 2, 1998) was a noted American historian who wrote (or edited) over forty books and over 700 journalistic essays and reviews, and taught at New York University, Columbia, and Amherst College. ... // Reconstruction was a period in United States history, 1862–1877, that resolved the issues of the American Civil War when both the Confederacy and its system of slavery were destroyed. ... Howard Melvin Fast (November 11, 1914 – March 12, 2003) was an American novelist and television writer. ... William Edward Burghardt DuBois (February 23, 1868 - August 27, 1963) was an African-American civil rights leader and scholar. ...

Since 1964, Litwack has been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught more than 30,000 students. [3] He is the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of American History.

He has received many honors in recognition of his distinguished and path-breaking scholarship, including the Pulitzer Prize in History, the Francis Parkman Prize, the American Book Award, and election to the presidency of the Organization of American Historians. Litwack has also been an enormously popular and influential teacher, who has received two distinguished teaching awards.[4] The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ... Francis Parkman Prize is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. ... The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. ... The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association is an organization of historians focusing on American history. ...

He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Film Grant, with which he produced To Look for America in 1971.

In chapter 2 of North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860, Litwack showed how the federal government's pervasive support for slavery led to shameful treatment of free African Americans.[5]

Litwack is writing a sequel to Trouble in Mind focusing on black southerners and race relations from the 1930s to 1955.[6]

A distinguished lecturer with the Organization of American Historians, Litwack lectures on these topics: The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association is an organization of historians focusing on American history. ...

• Pearl Harbor Blues: Black Americans and World War II
• Trouble in Mind: African Americans and Race Reflections from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement
• On Becoming a Historian
• To Look for America: From Hiroshima to Woodstock (an impressionistic multi-media examination of American society, with an introductory lecture on American society after 1945)
• Fight the Power: Black Americans and Race Relations after the Civil Rights Movement

[7]

Books by Leon F. Litwack (partial listing)

• Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. (1979) Winner of the 1981 National Book Award for history and the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for History.
• North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (University of Chicago Press: 1961)
• Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America edited by Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack and James Allen. (Twin Palms Publishers: 2000) ISBN 0-944092-69-1
• The Harvard Guide to African-American History by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Darlene Clark Hine and Leon F. Litwack (editors) (Harvard Univ Press: 2001) ISBN 0-674-00276-8 Compiles information and interpretations on the past 500 years of African American history, containing essays on historical research aids, bibliographies, resources for women's issues, and an accompanying CD-ROM providing bibliographical entries.
• Trouble In Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (Alfred A. Knopf: 1998)

The National Book Award is one of the most important literary prizes in the United States, presented annually for the best books by living U.S. citizens published in the U.S. The awards have been presented since 1950 in at least one category, and are presently awarded in each... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. ...

Interview with Leon F. Litwack

Interview at History Matters

Ciations

{1}Michael Les Benedict. "Review of Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery, H-Law, H-Net Reviews, March, 2002. URL: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=73411015347997. Michael Les Benedict is a prominent American historian, who taught at Ohio State University from 1970 until his retirement in 2005. ...