Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. has won the Nonfiction award for his ninth book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. Born in Moss Point, Mississippi, and raised in Pascagoula, Glaude received his BA degree from Morehouse College, an MA degree in African American studies from Temple University, and an MA and PhD in religion from Princeton University. He is founding member and Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Project.
Glaude began his teaching career at Bowdoin College, where he served as chair of the Department of Religion. He was a visiting scholar at Amherst College and at Harvard University. He holds an honorary doctorate from Colgate University, where his commencement speech was recognized by The New York Times as one of the best of the year.
He is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is a regular contributor to newspapers, magazines, television news shows, and documentaries. His first book, Exodus!: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America, won the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize. According to Bill Moyers, Glaude’s book Democracy in Black “breathes with prophetic fire” and is filled with “inconvenient truths”.
Upon receiving the key to the city of Moss Point, Glaude said, “This is amazing to be celebrated by my hometown, to have the opportunity for my family to be here. Everywhere I am in the country, I say I’m from Moss Point.”
Glaude currently serves as James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of African American Studies at Princeton.