Edda Fields-Black Awarded Pulitzer Prize In History

Edda Fields-Black was introduced because the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for her guide “COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom throughout the Civil Battle.” For her work in historical past, Fields-Black accounted with first-hand information on how Tubman led what Fields-Black referred to as the most important “slave rebel in U.S historical past.”

Fields-Black was awarded the Pulitzer on Could 5 in historical past. The prize, shared between Combee and “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America” by Kathleen DuVal. The items are described as “distinguished and appropriately documented books on the historical past of america.”

Fields-Black opened as much as the Miami Herald about her win, describing getting extra cellphone calls and emails with congratulations than she anticipated. Nonetheless, the occasion feels monumental for Black historians.

Fields-Black instructed the outlet, “It’s a type of validation, virtually, that these tales are essential and that they should be instructed with the backing of the Pulitzer Prize, even below these very tough circumstances.

She is only one of two girls who’ve received the Pulitzer Prize in historical past, alongside the trailblazing writer Annette Gordon-Reed.

Fields-Black’s Combahee guide particulars the Combahee River Raid of 1863, and the Miami native historian spent 10 years researching and writing the guide. Using Civil Battle pension information to precisely establish the lads concerned within the raid, it was essential to Fields-Black to inform the story with as many firsthand accounts as attainable.

In keeping with the Miami Herald, she started her journey researching the Combahee River Raid after studying a few man named Linus Hamilton.

Hamilton is an 88-year-old man who recounted what occurred to him and his spouse on the morning of the raid.

“It’s such a unprecedented story and historic doc,” Fields-Black stated. “This can be very uncommon to know an enslaved individual’s title, first and final title. It’s extraordinarily uncommon to listen to their voice, and it’s virtually unprecedented to listen to them inform in their very own phrases how they felt at any level of their lives.”

“In studying the literature in regards to the raid, I started to attach it to Linus Hamilton. It had not been linked earlier than, and I started to suppose perhaps there’s a narrative right here that hasn’t been instructed.”

Fields-Black recognized dozens of folks that Harriet Tubman helped to liberate, and the rice plantations during which the raids came about.

Edda’s mom and founding father of the Miami Black Archives, Jenkin Fields, is extra excited than anybody else for her daughter.

Fields isn’t any stranger to Black historical past work, because the founding father of Miami’s Black Archives, she is dedicated to preserving the historical past of individuals of African descent who reside in South Florida. Fields instructed the Herald that [Fields-Black]’s achievements “are a testomony to her power and perseverance. Her laborious work and dedication paid off, and I couldn’t be extra proud.”

She continued, “As soon as-difficult-to-access information at the moment are digitized,, giving African American households alternatives to get well extra of our misplaced previous.”

When Fields-Black’s Pulitzer Prize win comes at such a time when Black Historical past is being policed in curricula, it’s much more essential to acknowledge the significance of her work.

Fields-Black instructed the Miami Herald that she simply needs individuals to remove two issues from her work on her guide, and that’s that Tubman was an integral a part of the civil conflict main the Combahee River Raids, and in addition that civil conflict pension information are a helpful level of contact in connecting Black individuals to the tales of their ancestors.

RELATED CONTENT: Novelist Percival Everett Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize For ‘James’