Stowe Prize for Literary Activism 2024

With great excitement, the Stowe Center announces Dr. Bettina L. Love as our 2024 Stowe Prize for Literary Activism winner, author of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal (St. Martin’s Press, 2023), which offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.

In the tradition of Michelle Alexander, an unflinching reckoning with the impact of 40 years of racist public school policy on generations of Black lives.

“I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education ‘reform’ in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I loved to dream.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist

Check out Dr. Love’s book page here!

About the Author

Dr. Bettina L. Love holds the prestigious William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. In 2022, the Kennedy Center recognized Dr. Love as one of the Next 50 Leaders dedicated to making the world more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate. Dr. Love is also the celebrated author of the bestseller We Want To Do More Than Survive, solidifying her position as a leading voice in the field of education and social justice.

About the Prize

The Stowe Prize for Literary Activism recognizes the author of a distinguished book of general adult fiction or nonfiction whose written work illuminates a critical social justice issue in the tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The winning book applies informed inquiry, is accessible and engaging to a wide audience, and promotes empathy and understanding. In creating this award, the Stowe Center recognizes the power of literary activism.

Stowe Prize for Literary Activism Selection Committee

Dr. Michael Mallery, Chair, Director of Social Emotional Learning, Windsor Schools

Stephen Bayer, Retired Senior VP, Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford

Antoinette Brim-Bell, Connecticut State Poet Laureate

Dr. Diane B. Cloud, Retired School Administrator

Prof. Joan Hedrick, Charles A. Dana Professor of History, Emerita, Trinity College

Terry Schmitt, Executive Director, CT Council for Interreligious Understanding

Prof. Brian Waddell, Political Science, Urban and Community Studies, University of Connecticut

The Honorable Dawne G. Westbrook, Connecticut Superior Court

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Bronze Sponsors

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School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.