The 77th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, presented to “books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and diversity of human cultures.” Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presented a lifetime achievement award to Arnold Rampersad, humanities professor at Stanford University and author of biographies of Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes. Awards are also given for non-fiction, David Blight, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era and David Livingstone Smith, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others and for fiction, Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues: A Novel. The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were held at the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland.