David W. Blight received his B.A. from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He is the Sterling Professor of American History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. In 2019 he won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his work, FREDERICK DOUGLASS: PROPHET OF FREEDOM. He has also written FREDERICK DOUGLASS�S CIVIL WAR and RACE AND REUNION: THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICAN MEMORY, 1863-1915, which received eight awards, including the Bancroft Prize, the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize and four prizes awarded by the Organization of American Historians. His book, A SLAVE NO MORE: THE EMANCIPATION OF JOHN WASHINGTON AND WALLACE TURNAGE earned three awards. Dr. Blight has edited or co-edited six other books, and his essays have appeared in numerous journals. In 2013-2014 he was the Pitt Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge. A consultant to several documentary films, Dr. Blight appeared in the 1998 PBS series, Africans in America, and has served on the Council of the American Historical Association. In 2023 he will serve as president of the Organization of American Historians.
