# Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program in the United States honors published Black writers worldwide for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. It is granted for fiction, nonfiction and poetry, selected in a juried competition.
Each fall, writers and publishers are invited to submit fiction, nonfiction and poetry books published that year. Panels of acclaimed writers serve as judges to select nominees, finalists and winners. A number of merit awards are also presented. Nominees are honored at the Legacy Awards ceremony, held the third Friday in October. The awards ceremony is hosted and organized by the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

## Merit awards

In addition to the Legacy Awards, the Hurston/Wright board of directors may present Merit awards during the annual Legacy Award ceremony.
* The North Star Award pays homage to the significance of the North Star for enslaved Africans, who looked to it as a guide to gaining freedom in the North. It is awarded to individuals whose writing and/or service to the writing community serve as a beacon of brilliant accomplishment and as an inspiration to others.
* The Ella Baker Award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice.
* The Madam C.J. Walker Award, named for the pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist, recognizes exceptional innovation in supporting and sustaining Black literature.

## Legacy Award winners
### Fiction
#### Contemplative fiction

Contemplative fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
| 2005 | Tracy Price-Thompson | A Woman's Worth | |
| 2006 | Clyde W. Ford | The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries | |

#### Debut fiction

Debut fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work |
| 2002 | David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story |
| 2003 | Tayari Jones | Leaving Atlanta |
| 2004 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Purple Hibiscus |
| 2005 | Chris Abani | GraceLand |
| 2006 | Denise Nicholas | Freshwater Road |
| 2007 | Aminatta Forna | Ancestor Stones |
| 2008 | Kwame Dawes | She's Gone |
| 2016 | Sanderia Faye | Mourner's Bench |
| 2017 | JJ Amaworo Wilson | Damnificados |
| 2018 | Ladee Hubbard | The Talented Ribkins |
| 2020 | Jeffrey Colvin | Africaville |
| 2021 | Rita Woods | Remembrance |
| 2022 | Quntos KunQuest | This Life |
| 2023 | Meron Hadero | A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times: Stories |

#### General fiction

General fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work |
| 2002 | Percival Everett | Erasure |
| 2003 | Zakes Mda | The Heart of Redness |
| 2004 | Mat Johnson | Hunting in Harlem |
| 2005 | Maryse Condé | Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? |
| 2006 | Nancy Rawles | My Jim |
| 2007 | Edward P. Jones | All Aunt Hagar's Children |
| 2008 | Junot Díaz | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao |
| 2009 | Uwem Akpan | Say You're One of Them |
| 2010 | Percival Everett | I Am Not Sidney Poitier |
| 2011 | Danielle Evans | Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self |
| 2012 | Helen Oyeyemi | Mr. Fox |
| 2013 | Esi Edugyan | Half-Blood Blues |
| 2014 | NoViolet Bulawayo | We Need New Names |
| 2015 | Laila Lalami | The Moor's Account |
| 2016 | James Hannaham | Delicious Foods |
| 2017 | Colson Whitehead | The Underground Railroad |
| 2018 | Alain Mabanckou | Black Moses |
| 2019 | Nafissa Thompson-Spires | Heads of the Colored People |
| 2020 | Curdella Forbes | A Tall History of Sugar |
| 2021 | Percival Everett | Telephone |
| 2022 | Percival Everett | The Trees |
| 2023 | James Hannaham | Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta |

#### Speculative fiction

Speculative fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
| 2023 | T. L. Huchu | Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments | |

### Nonfiction
#### General nonfiction

General nonfiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work |
| 2002 | Ken Wiwa | In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy |
| 2003 | Elizabeth McHenry | Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies |
| 2004 | Wil Haygood | In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. |
| 2005 | Alexis De Veaux | Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde |
| 2006 | John Hope Franklin | Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin |
| 2007 | Wangari Maathai | Unbowed: A Memoir |
| 2008 | Edwige Danticat | Brother, I'm Dying |
| 2009 | Frank B. Wilderson | Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid |
| 2010 | Robin Kelley | Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original |
| 2011 | Isabel Wilkerson | The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration |
| 2012 | Tomiko Brown-Nagin | Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement |
| 2013 | Fredrick Harris | The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics |
| 2014 | Craig Wilder | Ebony & Ivy |
| 2015 | Elizabeth Nunez | Not For Everyday Use |
| 2016 | Pamela Newkirk | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga |
| 2017 | Kali Nicole Gross | Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America |
| 2018 | Tiya Miles | The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits |
| 2019 | Imani Perry | May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem |
| 2020 | Albert Woodfox | Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope |
| 2021 | Marcia Chatelain | Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America |

#### Historical/Social/Political

Historical/Social/Political nonfiction winners :
| Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
| 2022 | Howard W. French | Born in Blackness | |
| 2023 | Mariame Burnham | By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners | |

#### Memoir/Biography

Memoir/Biography winners :
| Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
| 2022 | Shanna Greene Benjamin | Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay | |
| 2023 | Ross Gay | Inciting Joy | |

### Poetry

Poetry winners :
| Year | Author | Work |
| 2007 | Patricia Smith | Teahouse of the Almighty |
| 2008 | Kyle G. Dargan | Bouquet of Hungers |
| 2009 | Myronn Hardy | The Headless Saints |
| 2010 | Rita Dove | Sonata Mulattica: Poems |
| 2010 | Haki R. Madhubuti | Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems |
| 2011 | Elizabeth Alexander | Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 |
| 2012 | Evie Shockley | the new black |
| 2013 | Lucille Clifton | The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 |
| 2014 | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | Darktown Follies |
| 2015 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric |
| 2016 | Vievee Francis | Forest Primeval |
| 2017 | Donika Kelly | Bestiary |
| 2018 | Evie Shockley | Semiautomatic |
| 2019 | Terrance Hayes | American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin |
| 2020 | Ladan Osman | Exiles of Eden |
| 2021 | Rachel Eliza Griffiths | Seeing the Body |
| 2022 | Shara McCallum | No Ruined Stone |
| 2023 | Courtney Faye Taylor | Concentrate |

## Winners, finalists, and nominees
### Fiction
#### Contemporary fiction

Contemporary fiction winners, finalists, and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2005 | Tracy Price-Thompson | A Woman's Worth | Winner |
| 2005 | Erica Kennedy | Bling | Nominee |
| 2005 | Bridgett M. Davis | Shifting Through Neutral | Nominee |
| 2005 | David E. Talbert | Love on the Dotted Line | Nominee |
| 2006 | Clyde W. Ford | The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries | Winner |
| 2006 | Benilde Little | Who Does She Think She Is? | Nominee |

#### Debut fiction

Debut fiction winners, finalists, and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2002 | David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story | Winner |
| 2002 | Kuwana Haulsey | The Red Moon | Finalist |
| 2002 | Joyce Palmer | Greenwichtown | Finalist |
| 2002 | Patricia Elam | Breathing Room | Nominee |
| 2002 | Dana Johnson | Break Any Woman Down | Nominee |
| 2002 | Nichelle D. Tramble | The Dying Ground | Nominee |
| 2003 | Tayari Jones | Leaving Atlanta | Winner |
| 2003 | Nicole Bailey-Williams | A Little Piece Of Sky | Finalist |
| 2003 | Zelda Lockhart | Fifth Born | Finalist |
| 2003 | Donna Hemans | River Woman | Nominee |
| 2003 | Marc Nesbitt | Gigantic | Nominee |
| 2003 | Nelly Rosario | Song of the Water Saints | Nominee |
| 2004 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Purple Hibiscus | Winner |
| 2004 | Stephanie Allen | A Place Between Stations | Finalist |
| 2004 | April Reynolds | Knee-Deep in Wonder | Finalist |
| 2004 | Asha Bandele | Daughter | Nominee |
| 2004 | ZZ Packer | Drinking Coffee Elsewhere | Nominee |
| 2004 | Suzan-Lori Parks | Getting Mother's Body | Nominee |
| 2005 | Chris Abani | GraceLand | Winner |
| 2005 | Esi Edugyan | The Second Life of Samuel Tyne | Nominee |
| 2005 | Delores Phillips | The Darkest Child | Nominee |
| 2006 | Denise Nicholas | Freshwater Road | Winner |
| 2006 | Doreen Baingana | Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe | Nominee |
| 2006 | Kalisha Buckhanon | Upstate | Nominee |
| 2007 | Aminatta Forna | Ancestor Stones | Winner |
| 2007 | Marie-Elena John | Unburnable | Nominee |
| 2007 | Asali Solomon | Get Down: Stories | Nominee |
| 2008 | Kwame Dawes | She's Gone | Winner |
| 2008 | Ravi Howard | Like Trees, Walking | Nominee |
| 2008 | Nathan McCall | Them | Nominee |
| 2016 | Sanderia Faye | Mourner's Bench | Winner |
| 2016 | Naomi Jackson | The Star Side of Bird Hill | Nominee |
| 2016 | Chigozie Obioma | The Fishermen | Nominee |
| 2017 | JJ Amaworo Wilson | Damnificados | Winner |
| 2017 | A. Igoni Barrett | Blackass | Nominee |
| 2017 | Elnathan John | Born on a Tuesday | Nominee |
| 2018 | Ladee Hubbard | The Talented Ribkins | Winner |
| 2018 | Zinzi Clemmons | What We Lose | Nominee |
| 2018 | Rivers Solomon | An Unkindness of Ghosts | Nominee |
| 2020 | Jeffrey Colvin | Africaville | Winner |
| 2020 | Ron A. Austin | Avery Colt Is a Snake, a Thief, a Liar | Nominee |
| 2020 | Sion Dayson | As a River | Nominee |
| 2021 | Rita Woods | Remembrance | Winner |
| 2021 | Tola Rotimi Abraham | Black Sunday | Nominee |
| 2021 | Steven Wright | The Coyotes of Carthage | Nominee |
| 2022 | Quntos KunQuest | This Life | Winner |
| 2022 | Khadija Abdalla Bajaber | The House of Rust | Nominee |
| 2022 | Sifiso Mzobe | Young Blood | Nominee |
| 2022 | Dawnie Walton | The Final Revival of Opal and Nev | Nominee |
| 2023 | Meron Hadero | A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times: Stories | Winner |
| 2023 | Leila Mottley | Nightcrawling | Nominee |
| 2023 | Natasha Gordon-Chipembere | Finding La Negrita | Nominee |

#### General fiction

Fiction winners, finalists, and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2002 | Percival Everett | Erasure | Winner |
| 2002 | Maxine Clair | October Suite | Finalist |
| 2002 | Anthony Grooms | Bombingham | Finalist |
| 2002 | Bernice L. McFadden | The Warmest December | Nominee |
| 2002 | Reginald McKnight | He Sleeps | Nominee |
| 2002 | Walter Mosley | Fearless Jones | Nominee |
| 2003 | Zakes Mda | The Heart of Redness | Winner |
| 2003 | Victor Lavalle | The Ecstatic | Finalist |
| 2003 | Jewell Parker Rhodes | Douglass' Women | Finalist |
| 2003 | Elizabeth Nunez | Discretion | Nominee |
| 2003 | Yvonne Vera | Without a Name and Under the Tongue | Nominee |
| 2003 | Crystal Wilkinson | Water Street | Nominee |
| 2004 | Mat Johnson | Hunting in Harlem | Winner |
| 2004 | Austin Clarke | The Polished Hoe | Finalist |
| 2004 | Caryl Phillips | A Distant Shore | Finalist |
| 2004 | Barbara Chase-Riboud | Hottentot Venus | Nominee |
| 2004 | Nalo Hopkinson | The Salt Roads | Nominee |
| 2004 | Edward P. Jones | The Known World | Nominee |
| 2005 | Maryse Condé | Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? | Winner |
| 2005 | Edwige Danticat | The Dew Breaker | Finalist |
| 2005 | Zakes Mda | The Madonna of Excelsior | Finalist |
| 2005 | Percival Everett | American Desert | Nominee |
| 2005 | Nuruddin Farah | Links | Nominee |
| 2005 | Walter Mosley | The Man in My Basement | Nominee |
| 2006 | Nancy Rawles | My Jim | Winner |
| 2006 | David Anthony Durham | Pride of Carthage | Finalist |
| 2006 | Tayari Jones | The Untelling | Finalist |
| 2006 | Tananarive Due | Joplin's Ghost | Nominee |
| 2006 | Caryl Phillips | Dancing in the Dark | Nominee |
| 2006 | Martha Southgate | Third Girl from the Left | Nominee |
| 2007 | Edward P. Jones | All Aunt Hagar's Children | Winner |
| 2007 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Half of a Yellow Sun | Finalist |
| 2007 | Calvin Baker | Dominion | Finalist |
| 2007 | Bernice L. McFadden | Nowhere Is a Place | Nominee |
| 2007 | Kim McLarin | Jump at the Sun | Nominee |
| 2007 | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o | Wizard of the Crow | Nominee |
| 2008 | Junot Díaz | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Winner |
| 2008 | Maryse Condé | The Story of the Cannibal Woman | Finalist |
| 2008 | Lawrence Hill | Someone Knows My Name | Finalist |
| 2008 | Jan Carew | The Guyanese Wander | Nominee |
| 2008 | Helon Habila | Measuring Time | Nominee |
| 2008 | Helen Oyeyemi | The Opposite House | Nominee |
| 2009 | Uwem Akpan | Say You're One of Them | Winner |
| 2009 | Jeffery Renard Allen | Holding Pattern: Stories | Finalist |
| 2009 | Jesmyn Ward | Where the Line Bleeds | Finalist |
| 2009 | Breena Clarke | Stand the Storm | Nominee |
| 2009 | Tananarive Due | Blood Colony | Nominee |
| 2009 | James McBride | Song Yet Sung | Nominee |
| 2010 | Percival Everett | I Am Not Sidney Poitier | Winner |
| 2010 | Bernardine Evaristo | Blonde Roots | Finalist |
| 2010 | Colson Whitehead | Sag Harbor | Finalist |
| 2010 | Chielo Zona Eze | The Trial of Robert Mugabe | Nominee |
| 2010 | Victor Lavalle | Big Machine | Nominee |
| 2010 | Attica Locke | Black Water Rising | Nominee |
| 2011 | Danielle Evans | Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self | Winner |
| 2011 | Bernice L. McFadden | Glorious | Finalist |
| 2011 | Dolen Perkins-Valdez | Wench | Finalist |
| 2011 | Dinaw Mengestu | How to Read the Air | Nominee |
| 2011 | Rosalyn Story | Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans | Nominee |
| 2011 | Tiphanie Yanique | How to Escape from a Leper Colony | Nominee |
| 2012 | Helen Oyeyemi | Mr. Fox | Winner |
| 2012 | Tayari Jones | Silver Sparrow | Finalist |
| 2012 | Colson Whitehead | Zone One | Finalist |
| 2012 | Nuruddin Farah | Crossbones | Nominee |
| 2012 | Danzy Senna | You Are Free | Nominee |
| 2012 | Jesmyn Ward | Salvage the Bones | Nominee |
| 2013 | Esi Edugyan | Half-Blood Blues | Winner |
| 2013 | Yvvette Edwards | A Cupboard Full of Coats | Nominee |
| 2013 | Dana Johnson | Elsewhere, California | Nominee |
| 2013 | Attica Locke | The Cutting Season | Nominee |
| 2013 | Ayana Mathis | The Twelve Tribes of Hattie | Nominee |
| 2013 | Bernice L. McFadden | Gathering of Waters | Nominee |
| 2014 | NoViolet Bulawayo | We Need New Names | Winner |
| 2014 | Mitchell S. Jackson | The Residue Years | Finalist |
| 2014 | Jamaica Kincaid | See Now Then | Finalist |
| 2014 | Preston L. Allen | Every Boy Should Have a Man | Nominee |
| 2014 | James McBride | The Good Lord Bird | Nominee |
| 2014 | Courttia Newland | The Gospel According to Cane | Nominee |
| 2015 | Laila Lalami | The Moor's Account | Winner |
| 2015 | Roxane Gay | An Untamed State | Finalist |
| 2015 | Tiphanie Yanique | Land of Love and Drowning | Finalist |
| 2015 | Chris Abani | The Secret History of Las Vegas | Nominee |
| 2015 | Ishmael Beah | Radiance of Tomorrow | Nominee |
| 2015 | Nadifa Mohamed | The Orchard of Lost Souls | Nominee |
| 2016 | James Hannaham | Delicious Foods | Winner |
| 2016 | Angela Flournoy | The Turner House | Finalist |
| 2016 | Caryl Phillips | The Lost Child | Finalist |
| 2016 | Paul Beatty | The Sellout | Nominee |
| 2016 | T. Geronimo Johnson | Welcome to Braggsville | Nominee |
| 2016 | Chinelo Okparanta | Under the Udala Trees | Nominee |
| 2017 | Colson Whitehead | The Underground Railroad | Winner |
| 2017 | Amina Gautier | The Loss of All Lost Things | Finalist |
| 2017 | Jacqueline Woodson | Another Brooklyn | Finalist |
| 2017 | Yvvette Edwards | The Mother | Nominee |
| 2017 | Bernice McFadden | The Book of Harlan | Nominee |
| 2017 | Zadie Smith | Swing Time | Nominee |
| 2018 | Alain Mabanckou | Black Moses | Winner |
| 2018 | Yewande Omotoso | The Woman Next Door | Finalist |
| 2018 | Jesmyn Ward | Sing, Unburied, Sing | Finalist |
| 2018 | Lesley Nneka Arimah | What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky | Nominee |
| 2018 | Ernest J. Gaines | The Tragedy of Brady Sims | Nominee |
| 2018 | Peter Kimani | Dance of the Jakaranda | Nominee |
| 2019 | Nafissa Thompson-Spires | Heads of the Colored People | Winner |
| 2019 | Wayétu Moore | She Would Be King | Finalist |
| 2019 | Jamel Brinkley | A Lucky Man | Finalist |
| 2019 | Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | Friday Black | Nominee |
| 2019 | David Chariandy | Brother | Nominee |
| 2019 | Esi Edugyan | Washington Black | Nominee |
| 2020 | Curdella Forbes | A Tall History of Sugar | Winner |
| 2020 | Rion Amilcar Scott | The World Doesn't Require You | Finalist |
| 2020 | Helen Oyeyemi | Gingerbread | Finalist |
| 2020 | Kalisha Buckhanon | Speaking of Summer | Nominee |
| 2020 | Nicole Dennis-Benn | Patsy | Nominee |
| 2020 | Margaret Wilkerson Sexton | The Revisioners | Nominee |
| 2021 | Percival Everett | Telephone | Winner |
| 2021 | Ben Okri | The Freedom Artist | Finalist |
| 2021 | P. Djèlí Clark | Ring Shout | Finalist |
| 2021 | Morgan Christie | These Bodies | Nominee |
| 2021 | Lauren Francis-Sharma | Book of the Little Axe | Nominee |
| 2021 | Alice Randall | Black Bottom Saints | Nominee |
| 2022 | Percival Everett | The Trees | Winner |
| 2022 | Ladee Hubbard | Rib King | Nominee |
| 2022 | Natashia Deon | The Perishing | Nominee |
| 2022 | J.J. Amaworo Wilson | Nazaré | Nominee |
| 2022 | Sadeqa Johnson | Yellow Wife | Nominee |
| 2022 | Alaya Dawn Johnson | Reconstruction: Stories | Nominee |
| 2023 | James Hannaham | Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta | Winner |
| 2023 | Dolen Perkins-Valdez | Take My Hand | Nominee |
| 2023 | Dionne Irving | The Islands | Nominee |
| 2023 | Candice Carty-Williams | People Person | Nominee |
| 2023 | Jacinda Townsend | Mother Country | Nominee |

#### Speculative fiction

Speculative fiction winners and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2023 | T. L. Huchu | Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments | Winner |
| 2023 | Tochi Onyebuchi | Goliath | Nominee |
| 2023 | Rita Woods | The Last Dreamwalker | Nominee |

### Nonfiction
#### General nonfiction

Nonfiction winners, finalists, and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2002 | Ken Wiwa | In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy | Winner |
| 2002 | A'Lelia Bundles | On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker | Finalist |
| 2002 | Paul Robeson Jr. | The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 | Finalist |
| 2002 | Michael Datcher | Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story | Nominee |
| 2002 | bell hooks | Salvation: Black People and Love | Nominee |
| 2002 | Dwight McBride | Impossible Witnesses: Truths, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony | Nominee |
| 2003 | Elizabeth McHenry | Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies | Winner |
| 2003 | Karla FC Holloway | Passed On: African American Mourning Stories | Finalist |
| 2003 | Carole Merritt | The Herndons: An Atlanta Family | Finalist |
| 2003 | Lawrence Jackson | Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius | Nominee |
| 2003 | Leon E. Wynter | American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America | Nominee |
| 2004 | Wil Haygood | In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. | Winner |
| 2004 | Lynne Duke | Mandela, Mobutu and Me | Finalist |
| 2004 | E. Patrick Johnson | Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity | Finalist |
| 2004 | Valerie Boyd | Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston | Nominee |
| 2004 | Susan Fales-Hill | Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful | Nominee |
| 2004 | Regina Louise | Somebody's Someone | Nominee |
| 2005 | Alexis De Veaux | Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde | Winner |
| 2005 | Debra J. Dickerson | The End of Blackness | Finalist |
| 2005 | Howard French | A Continent for the Taking | Finalist |
| 2005 | Elizabeth Alexander | The Black Interior | Nominee |
| 2005 | Sheryll Cashin | The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream | Nominee |
| 2005 | Ellis Cose | Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge | Nominee |
| 2006 | John Hope Franklin | Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin | Winner |
| 2006 | Donald Bogle | Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood | Finalist |
| 2006 | Lisa E. Farrington | Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists | Finalist |
| 2006 | Mary Frances Berry | My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations | Nominee |
| 2006 | Dwight A. McBride | Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality | Nominee |
| 2006 | Cheryl A. Wall | Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition | Nominee |
| 2007 | Wangari Maathai | Unbowed: A Memoir | Winner |
| 2007 | Louis Chude-Sokei | The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora | Finalist |
| 2007 | Kym Ragusa | The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging | Finalist |
| 2007 | Christopher John Farley | Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley | Nominee |
| 2007 | Karla F.C. Holloway | BookMarks: Reading in Black and White | Nominee |
| 2007 | Walter C. Rucker | The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America | Nominee |
| 2007 | Quincy Troupe | The Architecture of Language | Nominee |
| 2008 | Edwige Danticat | Brother, I'm Dying | Winner |
| 2008 | Sylviane A. Diouf | Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America | Finalist |
| 2008 | Sherrilyn Ifill | On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century | Finalist |
| 2008 | Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Infidel | Nominee |
| 2008 | Jabari Asim | The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why | Nominee |
| 2008 | Gerald Horne | The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil and the African Slave Trade | Nominee |
| 2009 | Frank B. Wilderson | Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid | Winner |
| 2009 | Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood | Finalist |
| 2009 | Paula J. Giddings | Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching | Finalist |
| 2009 | Sheryll Cashin | The Agitator’s Daughter: A Memoir of Four Generations of One Extraordinary African- American Family | Nominee |
| 2009 | Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina | Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth- Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend | Nominee |
| 2009 | Marcus Reeves | Somebody Scream: Rap Music's Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power | Nominee |
| 2010 | Robin Kelley | Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original | Winner |
| 2010 | Betty DeRamus | Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad | Finalist |
| 2010 | Wil Haygood | Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson | Finalist |
| 2010 | Gwen Ifill | The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama | Nominee |
| 2010 | James A. Miller | Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial | Nominee |
| 2010 | William Julius Wilson | More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City | Nominee |
| 2011 | Isabel Wilkerson | The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration | Winner |
| 2011 | Lawrence Jackson | The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 | Finalist |
| 2011 | Rawn James Jr. | Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation | Finalist |
| 2011 | Tom Burrell | Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority | Nominee |
| 2011 | Thomas Chatterton Williams | Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture | Nominee |
| 2011 | Keith Gilyard | John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism | Nominee |
| 2012 | Tomiko Brown-Nagin | Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement | Winner |
| 2012 | Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts | Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America | Finalist |
| 2012 | Binyavanga Wainaina | One Day I Will Write About This Place | Finalist |
| 2012 | Melissa V. Harris-Perry | Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America | Nominee |
| 2012 | Mark Whitaker | My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir | Nominee |
| 2013 | Fredrick Harris | The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics | Winner |
| 2013 | Chinua Achebe | There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra | Nominee |
| 2013 | Natalie Hopkinson | Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City | Nominee |
| 2013 | Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot | Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free | Nominee |
| 2013 | Ashraf H. A. Rushdy | American Lynching | Nominee |
| 2013 | Heather Andrea Williams | Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery | Nominee |
| 2014 | Craig Wilder | Ebony & Ivory | Winner |
| 2014 | Stanley Crouch | Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker | Finalist |
| 2014 | Jesmyn Ward | Men We Reaped | Finalist |
| 2014 | Sheri Booker | Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home | Nominee |
| 2014 | William P. Jones | The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights | Nominee |
| 2014 | Emily Raboteau | Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora | Nominee |
| 2015 | Elizabeth Nunez | Not For Everyday Use | Winner |
| 2015 | Charles M. Blow | Fire Shut Up in My Bones | Finalist |
| 2015 | Charles E. Cobb, Jr. | This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible | Finalist |
| 2015 | Danielle Allen | Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality | Nominee |
| 2015 | Saladin Ambar | Malcolm X at Oxford Union | Nominee |
| 2015 | Bob Herbert | Losing Our Way | Nominee |
| 2016 | Pamela Newkirk | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga | Winner |
| 2016 | Elizabeth Alexander | The Light of the World | Finalist |
| 2016 | Gerald Horne | Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic | Finalist |
| 2016 | Ron Stodghill | Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture | Nominee |
| 2016 | Harriet A. Washington | Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We Catch Mental Illness | Nominee |
| 2016 | D. Watkins | The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America | Nominee |
| 2017 | Kali Nicole Gross | Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America | Winner |
| 2017 | Alondra Nelson | The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, And Reconciliation After the Genome | Finalist |
| 2017 | Christina Sharpe | In the Wake: On Blackness and Being | Finalist |
| 2017 | Patricia Bell-Scott | The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice | Nominee |
| 2017 | Ibram X. Kendi | Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Nominee |
| 2017 | Gary Younge | Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives | Nominee |
| 2018 | Tiya Miles | The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits | Winner |
| 2018 | Noliwe Rooks | Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education | Finalist |
| 2018 | Michael W. Twitty | The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South | Finalist |
| 2018 | Danielle Allen | Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. | Nominee |
| 2018 | Sheryll Cashin | Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy | Nominee |
| 2018 | Camille T. Dungy | Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History | Nominee |
| 2019 | Imani Perry | May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem | Winner |
| 2019 | Stephen L. Carter | Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster | Finalist |
| 2019 | Brittney Cooper | Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower | Finalist |
| 2019 | Wil Haygood | Tigerland: 1968–1969 A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing | Nominee |
| 2019 | Kiese Laymon | Heavy: An American Memoir | Nominee |
| 2019 | Jeffrey C. Stewart | The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke | Nominee |
| 2020 | Albert Woodfox | Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope | Winner |
| 2020 | Clyde Ford | Think Black: A Memoir | Finalist |
| 2020 | Saidiya Hartman | Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals | Finalist |
| 2020 | Ben Crump | Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People | Nominee |
| 2020 | Dani McClain | We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood | Nominee |
| 2020 | Damon Young | What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays | Nominee |
| 2021 | Marcia Chatelain | Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America | Winner |
| 2021 | Vincent Brown | Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War | Finalist |
| 2021 | Deirdre Mask | The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power | Finalist |
| 2021 | Ijeoma Oluo | Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America | Nominee |
| 2021 | Ainissa Ramirez | The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another | Nominee |
| 2021 | Natasha Trethewey | Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir | Nominee |

#### Historical/Social/Political Nonfiction

Historical/Social/Political Nonfiction winners and nominees :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2022 | Howard W. French | Born in Blackness | Winner |
| 2022 | Daphne Brooks | Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound | Nominee |
| 2022 | Mariame Kaba | We Do This Till We Free Us | Nominee |
| 2023 | Mariame Burnham | By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners | Winner |
| 2023 | Robert O'Meally | Antagonistic Cooperation: Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture | Nominee |
| 2023 | Caleb Gayle | We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power | Nominee |
| 2023 | Winston James | Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik | Nominee |

#### Memoir/Biography

Memoir/Biography winners and nominees :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2022 | Shanna Greene Benjamin | Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay | Winner |
| 2022 | Farah Jasmine Griffin | Read Until You Understand | Nominee |
| 2022 | Marlon Peterson | Bird Uncaged | Nominee |
| 2023 | Ross Gay | Inciting Joy | Winner |
| 2023 | Taylor Harris | This Boy We Made | Nominee |
| 2023 | D. Watkins | Black Boy Smile | Nominee |
| 2023 | Harrison Mooney | Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery | Nominee |

### Poetry

Poetry winners, finalists, and nominees :
| Year | Author | Work | Result |
| 2007 | Patricia Smith | Teahouse of the Almighty | Winner |
| 2007 | Terrance Hayes | Wind in a Box | Finalist |
| 2007 | Quincy Troupe | The Architecture of Language | Finalist |
| 2008 | Kyle G. Dargan | Bouquet of Hungers | Winner |
| 2008 | Remica L. Bingham | Conversion | Nominee |
| 2008 | A. Van Jordan | Quantum Lyrics | Nominee |
| 2009 | Myronn Hardy | The Headless Saints | Winner |
| 2009 | Jericho Brown | Please | Nominee |
| 2009 | Yusef Komunyakaa | Warhorses | Nominee |
| 2010 | Rita Dove | Sonata Mulattica: Poems | Winner |
| 2010 | Haki R. Madhubuti | Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems | Winner |
| 2010 | Samiya Bashir | Gospel | Nominee |
| 2010 | Mitchell L. H. Douglas | Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem | Nominee |
| 2011 | Elizabeth Alexander | Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 | Winner |
| 2011 | Terrance Hayes | Lighthead | Nominee |
| 2011 | Thomas Sayers Ellis | Skin, Inc: Identity Repair Poems | Nominee |
| 2012 | Evie Shockley | the new black | Winner |
| 2012 | Aracelis Girmay | Kingdom Animalia | Nominee |
| 2012 | Tracy K. Smith | Life on Mars | Nominee |
| 2013 | Lucille Clifton | The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–210 | Winner |
| 2013 | Lillian-Yvonne Bertram | But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise | Nominee |
| 2013 | Monica Hand | me and Nina | Nominee |
| 2014 | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | Darktown Follies | Winner |
| 2014 | Yona Harvey | Hemming the Water | Finalist |
| 2014 | A. Van Jordan | The Cineaste: Poems | Finalist |
| 2014 | Remica L. Bingham | What We Ask of Flesh | Nominee |
| 2014 | Adrian Matejka | The Big Smoke | Nominee |
| 2014 | Carl Phillips | Silverchest | Nominee |
| 2015 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric | Winner |
| 2015 | Geffrey Davis | Revising the Storm | Finalist |
| 2015 | Roger Reeves | King Me | Finalist |
| 2015 | Brian Gilmore | We Don't Know Any Gangsters | Nominee |
| 2015 | Gregory Pardlo | Digest | Nominee |
| 2015 | Willie Perdomo | The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon | Nominee |
| 2016 | Vievee Francis | Forest Primeval | Winner |
| 2016 | Kyle Dargan | Honest Engine | Finalist |
| 2016 | Ross Gay | Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude | Finalist |
| 2016 | Robin Coste Lewis | Voyage of the Sable Venus | Nominee |
| 2016 | Terrance Hayes | How to Be Drawn | Nominee |
| 2016 | Angela Jackson | It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time | Nominee |
| 2017 | Donika Kelly | Bestiary | Winner |
| 2017 | francine j. harris | play dead | Finalist |
| 2017 | Phillip B. Williams | Thief in the Interior | Finalist |
| 2017 | Ruth Ellen Kocher | Third Voice | Nominee |
| 2017 | Sjohnna McCray | Rapture | Nominee |
| 2017 | Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | The Crown Ain't Worth Much | Nominee |
| 2018 | Evie Shockley | Semiautomatic | Winner |
| 2018 | Nicole Sealey | Ordinary Beast | Finalist |
| 2018 | Patricia Smith | Incendiary Art | Finalist |
| 2018 | Kwame Dawes | City of Bones | Nominee |
| 2018 | Camille T. Dungy | Trophic Cascade | Nominee |
| 2018 | Shane McCrae | In the Language of My Captor | Nominee |
| 2019 | Terrance Hayes | American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin | Winner |
| 2019 | Kwoya Fagin Maples | Mend | Finalist |
| 2019 | Asiya Wadud | Crosslight for Youngbird | Finalist |
| 2019 | Chanda Feldman | Approaching the Fields | Nominee |
| 2019 | Monica A. Hand | DiVida | Nominee |
| 2019 | Marcus Jackson | Pardon My Heart | Nominee |
| 2020 | Ladan Osman | Exiles of Eden | Winner |
| 2020 | t’ai freedom ford | & More Black | Finalist |
| 2020 | Asiya Wadud | Syncope | Finalist |
| 2020 | Geffrey Davis | Night Angler | Nominee |
| 2020 | Eve L. Ewing | 1919 | Nominee |
| 2020 | Alison Rollins | Library of Small Catastrophes | Nominee |
| 2021 | Rachel Eliza Griffiths | Seeing the Body | Winner |
| 2021 | Tommye Blount | Fantasia for the Man in Blue | Finalist |
| 2021 | Carl Phillips | Pale Colors in a Tall Field | Finalist |
| 2021 | Erica Hunt | Jump the Clock | Nominee |
| 2021 | John Murillo | Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry | Nominee |
| 2021 | Kiki Petrosino | White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia | Nominee |
| 2022 | Shara McCallum | No Ruined Stone | Winner |
| 2022 | Mahogany L. Browne | I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love | Nominee |
| 2022 | Teri Ellen Cross Davis | More Perfect Union | Nominee |
| 2022 | Clemonce Heard | Tragic City | Nominee |
| 2022 | Douglas Kearney | Sho | Nominee |
| 2022 | Yusef Komunyakaa | Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth | Nominee |
| 2023 | Courtney Faye Taylor | Concentrate | Winner |
| 2023 | Cheryl Boyce Taylor | We Are Not Wearing Helmets | Nominee |
| 2023 | Robin Coste Lewis | To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness | Nominee |
| 2023 | Renee Gladman | Plans for Sentences | Nominee |
| 2023 | Isaiah A. Hines | Null Landing | Nominee |
| 2023 | Roger Reeves | Best Barbarian | Nominee |