2024 Winner: Dr. Bettina L. Love

With great excitement, the Stowe Center announces Dr. Bettina L. Love as our 2024 Stowe Prize for Literary Activism winner, acclaimed author of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal ( St. Martin’s Press, 2023).

Dr. Bettina L. Love, the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, is a New York Times bestselling author of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. Recognized as one of the Kennedy Center’s Next 50 Leaders and honored with the Truth Award for Excellence in Education, Dr. Love co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network, which has distributed over $350,000 in grants, and played a key role in the “In Her Hands” program, supporting Black women in Georgia with over $13 million. A sought-after speaker and prolific writer, her work covers abolitionist teaching, anti-racism, and educational reparations, with her book We Want To Do More Than Survive.

The Stowe Prize for Literary Activism recognizes the author of a distinguished book of general adult fiction or nonfiction whose written work illuminates a critical social justice issue in the tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s CabinThe winning book applies informed inquiry, is accessible and engaging to a wide audience, and promotes empathy and understanding. In creating this award, the Stowe Center recognizes the power of literary activism.

Dr. Michael Mallery, Panel Chair

Stephen Bayer 

Antoinette Brim-Bell 

Dr. Diane B. Cloud 

Dr. Joan D. Hedrick 

Terry Schmitt 

Dr. Brian Waddell 

The Honorable Dawne Westbrook 

LEGACY SPONSOR

 

Silver Sponsors
Anonymous
Assured Guaranty
BBE
Connecticut Public
Becky Latimer & Alan Kreczko

Bronze Sponsors
Katherine D. Kane & John Kelsey
The Goodwin Hotel
Judith Lohman & David Reik
Robinson+Cole
Trinity College

Circle of Friends
A. M. Communications Solutions, Inc.
Dr. Anne S. Agee
Barnes
Crosskey Architects, LLC
Virginia de Lima
Drs. Booker & Elena DeVaughn
Susan and Ned Dunn, Jr.
Dr. Joan D. Hedrick
Dave Jenkins
Ed & Lois Lewis
Peter Little
Marjorie E. Morrissey
Dr. Jeffrey Ogbar & Jeanna Grimes Ogbar
Pue, Chick, Leibowitz & Blezard, LLC
Dr. Barbara Sicherman
Smith Brothers Insurance
Anne Stanback & Charlotte Kinlock
Shannon Wegele & Ben Wenograd

“I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education ‘reform’ in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I loved to dream.”

Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist