Grinnell College Dedicates Building in Honor of First Black Alumna Edith Renfrow Smith
Renfrow Smith, who recently celebrated her 110th birthday, is Grinnell College's first Black alumna and oldest living alum. The newly established Renfrow Hall will serve as a space for the college and local community to collaborate on civic engagement projects.
Gene Jarrett Receives Award for His Biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Gene Jarrett's book, Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, tells the story of Dunbar's life as an African American writer in the late 1800s.
Berkeley Professor Walter Hood Wins National Award for Excellence in Architecture and Landscape Design
Hood is a professor and chair of the department of landscape architecture & environmental planning and urban design at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a practicing architect and a past recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
UNCF President Michael Lomax Receives Andrew Jackson Young Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Lomax is currently in his twentieth year as president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund. He has dedicated his five-decades-long career to civic duty and education, including service as the fifth president of Dillard University in New Orleans.
Kemeshia Swanson Receives 2024 Eudora Welty Book Prize
Dr. Swanson, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, has been recognized for her new book, Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded Upon Violence and Respectability.
Monic Ductan Receives Inaugural Tennessee Book Award in Fiction
Monic Ductan was honored for her first book, Daughters of Muscadine: Stories. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at Tennessee Tech University.
‘Dimeji Togunde Honored for Lifetime Achievement in Global Education
Dr. 'Dimeji Togunde is the vice provost for global education at Spelman College. Since joining the college's faculty in 2011, he has more than doubled the number of study abroad destinations for Spelman students.
Arizona State University Law Presents the O’Connor Justice Prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman democratically elected head of state in Africa. She was elected president of Libera in 2005 - just two years after the end of a decades-long civil war.
Danielle Speller Recognized by the National Society of Black Physicists for Early-Career Accomplishments
Danielle Spencer currently serves as an assitant professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She was honored by the National Society of Black Physicists for her research into dark matter and her mentorship of the next generation of physicists.
NCA&T Chancellor Emeritus Harold Martin Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Martin served as chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University from 2009 to 2023. Throughout his long tenure, the university experienced substantial growth in enrollment, and is now the largest HBCU in the country.
Herman Taylor Receives National Recognition for Excellence in Clinical Cardiovascular Research
Dr. Herman Taylor currently directs the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, one of four historically Black medical schools in the country. He was recently honored by the American Heart Association for excellence in clinical research.
North Carolina Supreme Court Unveils Portrait of NCCU Law Dean Patricia Timmons-Goodson
Patricia Timmons-Goodson was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2006, making her the first Black woman to serve in that capacity. She has served as dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law for the past year.
The Anti-Defamation League Honors Charles Chavis for Scholarship on Black and Jewish Relations
Dr. Chavis currently teaches as an assistant professor of conflict resolution and serves as the founding director of the John Mitchell, Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
The 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Has Been Awarded to Two Black Scholars
The 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize has been awarded to Marlene Daut, professor at Yale University, and Sara Johnson, professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Tanisha Ford Wins National Book Award for a Biography of Prominent Civil Rights Movement...
Dr. Ford's award-winning book - Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power, Behind the Civil Rights Movement - examines the social history of Mollie Moon, founding president of the National Urban League Guild.
College of Charleston’s Carlos Brown Receives Award for Outstanding Choral Conducting
Dr. Brown currently serves as director of choral activities at the College of Charleston, where he conducts both the concert choir and gospel choir. His background includes leadership roles at two historically Black universities.
Nneka Dennie Receives National Book Prize for Outstanding Bibliographical Scholarship
Dr. Dennie's award-winning book, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Black Radical Feminist, examines the works of North America's first Black woman newspaper editor.
Marsha McGriff Recognized for Diversity Work by the Not Alone Foundation
Marsha McGriff, vice chancellor for equity and inclusion at the University of Masssachusetts Amherst, has been selected to receive the 2025 Diamond Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership from the Atlanta-based Not Alone Foundation. The foundation's stated mission is fighting kidney disease.
Tuskegee University’s Olga Bolden-Tiller Honored for Commitment to Agricultural Education
Dr. Bolden-Tiller is the dean of the College of Agriculture, Environment, and Nutrition Sciences at Tuskegee University, where she has taught for nearly two decades.
