Stowe Prize recipient brings us closer to understanding injustice

This year, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center makes its sixth Stowe Prize award. The award recognizes an author whose work illuminates a critical social issue in the tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Because Stowe’s writings challenged slavery and promoted women’s education, the award prioritizes social issues impacted by racism and gender discrimination.

Choosing an awardee is always difficult. In our country, we are fortunate to have a strong tradition of social justice writing challenging us to do better. And yet, when we see blatant racism and sexism in our politics, racist police violence and gross disparities in wealth, health and opportunity, we wonder. Do the authors’ words have impact? Does it matter that books help us see our society from another perspective? The answer is yes. Absolutely. When Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the nation was similarly afflicted by polarizing politics and injustice. Tension over slavery became more pronounced with the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which forced citizens to assist in the re-enslavement of individuals who escaped to freedom. Against this backdrop, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and its anti-slavery message found an unprecedented audience. First released as a newspaper serial, it was published as a two-volume book in 1852, selling in its first year a staggering 300,000 copies in the United States and 1.5 million copies in the United Kingdom. In the 19th century, the only book to outsell “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was the Bible.

That popularity inspired plenty of hate. Southern writers crafted a whole genre of “Anti-Tom” novels intended to counter Stowe’s story and assert that African Americans benefited from slavery. Other pro-slavery advocates opposed the novel on supposed patriotic grounds, claiming that its international popularity damaged the United States’ standing abroad. But cultural historian Adena Spingarn does not equate that backlash with ineffectiveness. Quite the contrary. In the reaction against “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Spingarn finds additional evidence of the novel’s power and its legacy of uniting millions of people in “shared sympathy.”

2017 Stowe Prize winner Bryan Stevenson would have called what Stowe achieved “getting proximate,” the idea that getting close to injustice is a necessary first step in combating it. Getting proximate is uncomfortable, and as it exposes privilege and complicity, it can rally forces intent on maintaining the status quo. However, history gives us hope. As it did in the fight against slavery, empathy and understanding can prevail.

All of our previous Stowe Prize honorees have helped us get proximate. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn encouraged us to become global citizens and bring our concern to women and girls on other continents; Michelle Alexander exposed how mass incarceration functions as a system of racial control; Ta-Nehisi Coates called out a history of deliberate policy decisions that have devastated Black Americans’ health, wealth, and well-being; Stevenson taught us compassion as he revealed racial discrimination in our criminal justice system; and Matthew Desmond showed us how housing instability impoverishes individuals and our society.

This year’s awardee, Albert Woodfox, brings us to a new level of proximity. Writing from his direct experience of over four decades in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, Woodfox exposes the inhumanity of a prison system designed to break, not reform. In getting proximate to Woodfox, we also encounter the strength of the human spirit. Throughout his memoir “Solitary,” Woodfox recounts how he turned his cell into a place of personal growth and self-education. Books and reading played a pivotal role in Woodfox’s journey. They helped him develop a strong moral character, knowledge of history, and a context for current events. Just as books freed Woodfox’s mind from the confinement of a 9-by-6 foot cell, they can help us all transcend the limits of our individual experience. Indeed, books are an essential tool in the struggle against injustice.