Every year, The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, recognizes a group of early-to-mid career historians for their outstanding achievements that illuminate the past in bold and creative ways. For 2024, nine scholars received the award and $300,000 in support of their future academic endeavors. Two of this year’s nine awardees are Black historians working in higher education.
Keisha N. Blain is a professor of Africana studies and professor of history at Brown University. Her research specializes in African American history, the modern African diaspora, and women’s and gender studies. She has authored several edited volumes and award-winning books including Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press, 2021). In addition to her role with Brown University, she serves as a columnist for MSNBC.
Dr. Blain is a graduate of Binghamton University of the State University of New York System, where she double-majored in history and Africana studies. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from Princeton University.
Cécile Fromont is a professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard University. Throughout her career, she has studied the visual, material, and religious cultures of Africa, Latin America, and Europe during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Her recent work centers around the aesthetic connections between Europe and Africa, as created and sustained by the Atlantic slave trade. She has authored several renowned publications including The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) and Images on a Mission in Early Modern Kongo and Angola (Penn State University Press, 2022).
Dr. Fromont is a graduate of Sciences-Po Paris where she studied cultural policy and management and international relations. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history of art and architecture from Harvard University.
