John Lewis Award for Public Service Recipients
The John Lewis Award for Public Service to the Discipline of History is offered annually to recognize individuals outside the ranks of professional historians who have made a significant contribution to the study, teaching, and public understanding of history, in the interest of social justice.
2023
Julieanna Richardson, The HistoryMakers
2022
Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative
2021
Sam Pollard, New York University
2023 Lewis Award for Public Service
Julieanna Richardson, The HistoryMakers
Julieanna L. Richardson is the founder and executive director of The HistoryMakers, an independent nonprofit organization that has created the largest collection of African American video interviews in the world. These videotaped oral histories are available to the public through a repository at the Library of Congress (since 2014) and cross a wide span of disciplines, encompassing nearly every aspect of public life. Richardson, an attorney working in the cable industry in Chicago, established The HistoryMakers in 1999. Interviews have taken place over approximately two decades in a changing technological framework. What began as interviews with inexpensive film cameras and basic videotape technology has evolved into digital files with sophisticated transcription software developed in collaboration with innovative partners at Carnegie Mellon University. Although autobiographical in emphasis, the material also includes family lore, historical commentary, and other modes of reflection.