Wesley-Logan Prize
The Wesley-Logan Prize in African diaspora history is jointly sponsored by the American Historical Association and the Association for the Study of African American Life & History. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding book in African diaspora history. The AHA Committee on Minority Historians established the prize in 1992 in memory of two early pioneers in the field, Charles H. Wesley and Rayford W. Logan. The general rules for submission are:
- The prize is offered for a book on some aspect of the history of the dispersion, settlement and adjustment, and/or return of peoples originally from Africa. Eligible for consideration are books in any chronological period and any geographical location. Only books of high scholarly and literary merit will be considered.
- Books with a copyright of 2018 are eligible for the 2019 award.
- Nominators must complete an online prize submission form for each book submitted.
- One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Wesley-Logan Prize Entry.” Print copies preferred unless otherwise indicated. If only e-copy is available, please contact review committee members beforehand to arrange submission format.
Please Note: Entries must be received by May 15, 2019, to be eligible for the 2019 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2019 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2020 AHA annual meeting in New York City.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
The review committee contact information and prize submission form will be posted by March 1 for submissions due May 15.
2018 Wesley-Logan Prize
Monique A. Bedasse, Washington University in St. Louis
Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization (Univ. of North Carolina Press)
Monique Bedasse draws on her research across three continents and five countries to convincingly show how Tanzania emerged as a key site where Rastafarians produced, practiced, and transformed pan-Africanism and the diaspora community. Her term “trodding diaspora”—the key theoretical intervention of her book—draws from and expands on the Rastafarian term “trod,” or to travel, to explore the distinct ways gender, race, citizenship, politics, and global blackness were produced, validated, and constrained within Tanzania from the 1960s through the 1970s. Jah Kingdom is an ambitious and imaginative book.