1981 Sterling Stuckey, historian, Black Studies Through the Prism of Paul Robeson

1982 Max Roach, percussionist and educator, The Sacred and Secular Traditions of Black Music

1983 John Blassingame, historian, Black Historical Scholarship and the Black Historian

1984 Vincent Harding, historian, The Role of Religion in the History of Haitians, Jamaicans and Afro-Americans

1985 Esther Rolle, actress, Not Without Laughter: Humor in the Past and Thought of Afro-Americans

1986 James Farmer, civil rights activist and educator, Marching to Different Drummers: A Civil Rights Movement Retrospective

1987 Robert C. Weaver, economist, educator, and administrator, The New Black Urban Experience

1988 Basil Davidson, historian, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

1989 James A. Moss, Jr., clinical psychologist and educator (son of Marion Thompson Wright), Marion Thompson Wright and the Writing of New Jersey Afro-American History

1990 Gerald Davis, anthropologist and folklorist, Folkways and Black History

1991 Arnold Rampersad, literary scholar and biographer, The Use of History in Afro-American Literature

1992 John Bracey, historian, The Age of Christopher Columbus: Legacies for Africa and the Americas

1993 Nell Irvin Painter, historian, Black Women in Afro-American History

1994 Joe William Trotter, Jr., historian, Travelin’ On My Mind: The Great Migration Reconsidered

1995 Wilson Jeremiah Moses, historian, Booker T. Washington and Modern Black Leadership Reconsidered

1996 Derrick Bell, legal scholar and novelist, Separate But Equal: Plessy v. Ferguson in Historical Perspective

1997 Robin D.G. Kelley, historian, Small Footprints on the Past: America’s Black Children in Historical Perspective

1998 Sterling Stuckey, historian, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Life and Times of Paul Robeson

1999 Eric Foner, historian, On the Meaning of Freedom

2000 Ali Mazrui, historian and philosopher, Time…Africa and the Diaspora

2001 Bettye Collier Thomas, historian and archivist, Every Wise Woman Buildeth Her House: Sisterhood in the Black Church

2002 Spencer Crew, historian and museum director, Old Stories, New Venues: African American History in Public Spaces

2003 David Levering Lewis, historian, W.E.B. DuBois in Africa

2004 Roger Wilkins, historian and journalist, Brown v. Board of Education in Retrospect

2005 James Oliver Horton, historian, Lessons from the Past: The 25th Anniversary of The Marion Thompson Wright Series

2006 Cheryl Wall, literary scholar, Black Creativity and Modern American Life

2007 David Blight, historian, Time Longer Than Rope: Historical Memory and the Black Atlantic

2008 Bernice Johnson Reagon, cultural scholar, Private Grief and Public Mourning in African American Life and History