Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

Alaina E. Roberts: I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land

The winner of the 2022 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize is author Alaina E. Roberts for I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). Dr. Roberts is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Roberts is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to the modern day. She holds a Doctorate in History from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts in History, with honors, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

She writes, teaches, and presents public talks about Black and Native history in the West, family history, slavery in the Five Tribes (the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Indian Nations), Native American enrollment politics, and Indigeneity in North America and across the globe.

"I've Been Here All the While tells the stories of the Black, Native, and white people who made Indian Territory, now known as the state of Oklahoma, their home," Roberts said. "This history is often overlooked, so it’s such an honor for my book to be recognized by the Center for Great Plains Studies, which houses important projects like Black Homesteaders, that do so much to educate the public on the diverse history of the Plains."

The Center for Great Plains Studies’ Stubbendieck book prize celebrates the most outstanding work about the Great Plains during the past year, chosen by an independent group of scholars.

Book Prize lecture: Sept. 7, 2022, 5:30 p.m., virtual and in-person at the Center for Great Plains Studies. Watch the lecture.