Leon Frank Litwack (December 2, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American historian whose scholarship focused on slavery, the Reconstruction Era of the United States, and its aftermath into the 20th century. He won a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

, the

Pulitzer Prize for History The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...

, and the

Francis Parkman Prize The Francis Parkman Prize, named after Francis Parkman, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing. The Society of American ...

for his 1979 book '' Been In the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery''. He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship. After the spring 2007 semester he retired to emeritus status at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he received the Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching that year. Then he went on a lecture tour that led to his latest book, ''How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow'' (2009).

Biography

Litwack was born in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...

, in 1929, the son of Minnie (Nitkin) and Julius Litwack. His Jewish parents had emigrated separately from Russia in the first decade of the 20th century and met in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He received his BA in 1951 and PhD in 1958 from the

. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

, University of South Carolina,

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

and

Colorado College Colorado College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approxi ...

. Litwack's interest in history was sparked by ''The Growth of the American Republic'', by

Samuel Eliot Morison Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and tau ...

and

Henry Steele Commager Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) was an American historian. As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define modern liberalism in the United States. In the 19 ...

(1930). Litwack said, Historian Michael Les Benedict wrote that in 1961 "Leon Litwack showed how the federal government's pervasive support for slavery led to shameful treatment of free African Americans." Benedict was referring to pages 30–63 of chapter 2, titled "The Federal Government and the Free Negro" in Litwack's book, ''North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860''. In 1964–2007 Litwack taught at the

University of California in Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, where he became the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of American History, instructing more than 30,000 students. For much of that time he taught the introductory course in post-Civil War American History. He gave his final lecture as a professor, "Fight the Power", on Monday, May 7, 2007, in Wheeler Auditorium. Litwack was elected to the presidency of the Organization of American Historians. An enormously popular and influential teacher, he was profiled in Newsweek's 2006 edition of the "Giving Back Awards", having been nominated by one of his former students. He has received two distinguished teaching awards. Litwack was presented with the Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2007 by the

ASUC The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the autonomous and officially recognized students' association of the University of California, Berkeley. It is the only students' association within the University of California ...

at the University of California, Berkeley. With a (

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

) NEH Film Grant, he produced ''To Look for America'' in 1971. ''Been in the Storm So Long'' was a groundbreaking book on Reconstruction, published in 1979. It won the annual

and Francis Parkman Prize; next year its first paperback edition won a

. This was the 1981 award for paperback History.
From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Award history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one. Years later he continued the investigation of race relations to the early 20th century with ''Trouble in Mind'' (1998). In turn, the sequel to ''Trouble''sequel
is ''How Free Is Free?: The Long Death of Jim Crow (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)'', which focuses on black southerners and race relations from the 1930s to 1955. A distinguished lecturer with the Organization of American Historians, Litwack lectured on these topics: * Pearl Harbor Blues: Black Americans and World War II * Trouble in Mind: African Americans and Race Reflections from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement * On Becoming a Historian * To Look for America: From Hiroshima to Woodstock (an impressionistic multi-media examination of American society, with an introductory lecture on American society after 1945) * Fight the Power: Black Americans and Race Relations after the Civil Rights Movement Litwack died of bladder cancer on August 5, 2021, in Berkeley.

Selected works

;Books * ''North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860'' (University of Chicago Press, 1961) * ''The American Labor Movement'' by Leon Litwack (1962) * ''Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery.'' (1979) — winner of the

"National Book Awards – 1981"
.

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

. Retrieved 2012-04-13. and the

"History"
. ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-13. * ''Trouble In Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow'' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998) * ''Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America'', edited by Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack and James Allen (Twin Palms Publishers, 2000) * ''The Harvard Guide to African-American History'', edited by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Darlene Clark Hine and Leon F. Litwack (Harvard Univ Press, 2001) — compiles information and interpretations on the past 500 years of African American history, containing essays on historical research aids, bibliographies, resources for women's issues, and an accompanying CD-ROM providing bibliographical entries * ''How Free Is Free?: The Long Death of Jim Crow. The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures'' (Harvard University Press, 2009) ;Articles * "The Blues Keep Falling", in ''Ethnic Notions: Black Images in the White Mind'' (Berkeley Art Center, 1982). * "Hellhound on My Trail: Race Relations in the South from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement", in ''Opening Doors: Perspectives on Race Relations in Contemporary America'' (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 3–25. * "Telling the Story: The Historian, the Film Maker, and the Civil War", in Robert B. Toplin (ed.), ''Ken Burns' Civil War: The Historians' Response'' (Oxford University Press, 1995). * "The Making of a Historian", in Paul A. Cimbala and Robert F. Himmelberg, ''Historians and Race: Autobiography and the Writing of History'' (Bloomington, 1996). * "Pearl Harbor Blues", ''Regards Croises Sur Les Afro-Américains / Cross Perspective on African Americans'' (University of Tours, France, 2003), 303–318. ;Film *''To Look for America'' (1971)

Notes

References

External links

Leon Litwack profile
U.C. Berkeley
Interview with Leon F. Litwack
''History Matters''
Leon Litwack profile
''San Francisco Chronicle'' (includes photo) *
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Southern California religious and fraternal collection, 1905-1922
(Collected by Leon Litwack) {{DEFAULTSORT:Litwack, Leon F. 1929 births 2021 deaths 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American textbook writers American male non-fiction writers Historians of slavery Historians of the Reconstruction Era Historians of race relations National Book Award winners Pulitzer Prize for History winners University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Writers from Santa Barbara, California Berkeley Student Cooperative alumni Historians from California American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish American historians Deaths from bladder cancer 21st-century American Jews Deaths from cancer in California