The Underground Railroad Free Press Prizes
The prizes are the most esteemed honor bestowed in the international Underground Railroad community. The purpose of the prizes is to recognize and honor the most outstanding contributions to contemporary Underground Railroad work in leadership, preservation, and advancement of knowledge. The prizes promote awareness and appreciation of contemporary Underground Railroad work to the general public, elected and other officials, governments, and key decision-makers by publicizing prizes and winners. As the prizes recognize that the Underground Railroad was an international enterprise, prize eligibility is extended to individual and organizational nominees from any nation. Nominators will want to familiarize themselves with prize procedures.
Since the first prizes were awarded in 2008, winners have run the gamut including a Pulitzer Prize winner, owners of historic safe-houses, historians, a library, a cartographer, a neighborhood organizer, a Fortune 500 CEO, a tour leader, husband-wife balladeers, two slave cabin cataloguers, researchers, and quite a few local enthusiasts working "in the trenches." Here they are.
Hortense Simmons, PhD, a close friend of Free Press, served on the Free Press Prize Panel of Judges advising on winner selection. She died far too young in 2010 of Lou Gehrig's disease. As a child, Dr. Simmons and her brother Ira lived as migrant crop pickers. Hortense Simmons became a much esteemed Professor Emerita of English Literature and Ethnic Studies at California State University in Sacramento, and a multiple Fulbright Scholar posted to Ukraine. Ira Simmons was elected as a city councilman. This prize recognizes a significant addition to the store of Underground Railroad knowledge and may be awarded for a single contribution such as a landmark publication, a body of work, the arts, or creating or advancing a collection.
Eligibility: Individuals, legal entities such as corporations or nonprofit corporations, or informal groups from any nation
Recognizes outstanding present or past individual leadership of a contemporary Underground Railroad entity or cause, or leadership within the Underground Railroad community as a whole
Eligibility: Individuals from any nation
Recognizes a significant restoration of an Underground Railroad safe-house or route; or discovery or rediscovery of an important Underground Railroad site or sites; or significant promotion or advancement of the methods of Underground Railroad site preservation; or significant preservation or restoration of art, music, literature or other forms of remembrance of the Underground Railroad
Eligibility: Individuals, legal entities such as corporations or nonprofit corporations, or informal groups from any nation