Paula Giddings

Paula Jane Giddings (born 1947) is an American writer, historian, and civil rights activist. She is the author of When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America, In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement (1988) and Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (2008).

Early life Paula Jane Giddings was born on November 16, 1947, in Yonkers, New York, to Virginia Iola Stokes and Curtis Gulliver Giddings. She grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in Yonkers, where she regularly and systematically experienced isolation and racism from her white neighbors. As a teen, Giddings personally experienced and witnessed the racism and violence against African Americans that led to and occurred in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. This led her to participate in the movement as a Freedom Rider. According to Giddings, this set the stage for her desire to understand both oppression and resistance to it, a theme that would recur through her own activism and writing. That year she enrolled in the historically Black college Howard University, where she worked on the university's newspaper beginning in her first year. In 1967, she became editor of the university's literary magazine,The Promethean, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1969. As a student at Howard, Giddings was part of a group of students who worked against sexism, colorism, and classism that they saw as rampant on their campus. She was inspired by her professors, including Arthur P. Davis and Jeane Marie Miller. Two years later, she transferred to the New York office, where she served as an associate editor until 1979. The following year, Giddings served as contributing editor and book review editor for Essence magazine and became a distinguished scholar for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). She also became a fellow of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Giddings received many accolades upon the 2008 publication of her biography of civil rights activist Ida B. Wells. Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching received the 2008 Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians, the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award, and was the 2009 Nonfiction winner of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award. It won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. In addition, it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for 2008 and was named a Best Book of 2008 by both the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. The book was recognized as the inaugural Duke University John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award winner in 2011.

In 2017, Giddings was a National Book Award Judge for nonfiction works. That same year, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Selected publications

Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008, ) Burning All Illusions: Writings from The Nation on Race 1866-2002 (Editor) (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, ) In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement (William Morrow & Co, 1988; Quill Publishers, 1995, ) When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (William Morrow & Co, 1984; Bantam Press, 1985; 2nd edn: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1996, )

Selected honors and awards

The following is a brief listing of some of the recognition Paula Giddings has received for her work and its impact. Candace Award for History, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1984 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1993 Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians for Ida, 2008 Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award for Ida, 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography for Ida, 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Ida, 2008 Ida named a Best Book of 2008, The Washington Post Ida named a Best Book of 2008, The Chicago Tribune. Nonfiction winner of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award, 2009 Inaugural John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award, 2011 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017 Howard University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award In The Field of Journalism, 2018 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship fellowship by the National Humanities Center fellowship by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Honorary Doctorates from Bennett College and Wesleyan University