A UNC faculty member earned one of the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes this week, as the awards were revealed on Monday.

History professor and author Kathleen DuVal — who has taught and researched at the Chapel Hill campus since 2003 — saw her latest book, “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America,” named a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history in the award’s book, drama and music category. The book, which went on sale one year ago, was described by the Pulitzer board as “a panoramic portrait of Native American nations and communities over a thousand years, a vivid and accessible account of their endurance, ingenuity and achievement in the face of conflict and dispossession.”

“I am thrilled to win this incredible honor and to bring it home to Carolina, which has been an amazing home for me my entire career,” Duval said in a release shared by UNC following the Pulitzer Prizes’ announcement.

“This is a well-deserved honor for Kathleen Duval, capping a series of accolades for her sweeping book,” added Jim White, the Dean of the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. “We are incredibly proud of Kathleen and grateful that she shares her immense knowledge with our campus and with the world through this book.”

DuVal shared the history Pulitzer award with Edda L. Field-Black of Carnegie Mellon University, who wrote “Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War.” Each author will receive a Pulitzer citation and a $15,000 prize.

The recognition for “Native Nations” is the latest win of a Pulitzer Prize for a UNC community member since Rhiannon Giddens earned a win for co-creating the opera “Omar” as the Southern Futures at Carolina Performing Arts Artist-in-Residence in 2023. UNC Hussman School of Journalism fellow and reporter Daniel Johnson earned a nomination in 2024 for his investigative series on the ties between long-range artillery crews in the military and traumatic brain injuries.

In addition to DuVal, former longtime UNC journalism professor and columnist Charles Sumner “Chuck” Stone Jr. earned a posthumous special citation by the Pulitzer Prize board on Monday. The group credited Stone’s “groundbreaking work as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement” alongside being one of the first widely syndicated Black columnists and a co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists for the recognition. Stone died in 2014 after retiring in 2004 following 13 years of teaching at UNC. His special citation is the first for a Tar Heel since journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones was recognized with one by the Pulitzer Board in 2020 for her work on the 1619 Project.

The full list of 2025 Pulitzer Prizes can be found on the award’s website.

 

Featured photos via UNC’s History Department and Random House Publishing.

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