We’re proud to announce Dr. Peniel Joseph as the recipient of the 2025 Texas Writer Award. Each year, we present the prestigious award to a Texas writer who has profoundly contributed to the state’s literary canon. Nominees are evaluated on originality, literary achievement, and the impact of their body of work.
Awardees are honored with a custom pair of boots handmade by El Paso-based artisans Rocketbuster during a special TBF Weekend ceremony (Nov. 8–9).
TBF Literary Director Hannah Gabel interviewed Dr. Joseph about his work and relationship to Texas and TBF.
Can you share a bit about your connection to Texas and how your Texas ties have shaped your voice and perspective as a writer?
I have lived in Texas for the past ten years. I was recruited to UT Austin as the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and Professor of History. Living in Texas has made me a more ambitious writer. The vastness of the landscape and the richness and diversity of the history here, which is constantly being shaped and reshaped, has made me a more observational writer.
Your work as both a writer and educator centers on the study of race, democracy, and civil rights. What was your entry point into this work and how has your focus evolved over the years?
My entry point was my relationship with my late mother, Germaine Joseph, a Haitian immigrant who relocated to New York City in 1966. Growing up in Brooklyn and Queens, New York during the 1980s provided an eye opening education on issues of race, class, democracy, justice, and dignity. And my mother, a hospital worker at Mount Sinai Hospital and member of Local 1199, served as an invaluable mentor, educator, and advocate for me toward pursuing my education and becoming a historian, writer, and teacher and storyteller.
How do your students influence your work? Are there conversations in the classroom that have surprised or inspired you recently?
Students are always a source of learning and inspiration. The conversations of late have been about the assaults on the postwar ideal of multiracial democracy that Texas contributed so much to with the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
What authors and/or books have made an impact on you and helped shape your work as a writer?
The Autobiography of Malcolm X proved instrumental. The works of historians such as W.E.B. Du Bois, novelists such as Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin’s non-fiction essays have been very influential.
You’ve written extensively on Black Power and civil rights history. As new movements continue to evolve, how has your understanding of past struggles influenced your interpretation of the present?
The past is never simply about history, but about how we come to shape, define, debate, and discuss the moral and ethical frameworks for the present and future. So, my study of social and political movements from Reconstruction to the present intensely shape the way I analyze contemporary movements. Historical context allows us to see echoes, antecedents, parallels, and juxtapositions.
What impact do you hope your work will have on future generations?
I hope that the work I have done offers a way of examining the grandeur and travails of the ongoing American experiment in multiracial democracy and its reverberations around the world. That story is filled with so much hope, triumph, and inspiration, in addition to conflict, violence, and setbacks.
Do you have any particularly special memories from your involvement with the Texas Book Festival over the years, either as an author or as an attendee?
Too many to recount. I loved being in conversation with Michele Norris in discussion of her Race Card Project last year at the State Theater. Fantastic book, author, and audience. I learned so much from the stories she shares in her book and ongoing project.
The Texas Writer Award honors your career as a whole. What does receiving this award mean to you?
This award is very meaningful. A wonderful honor, considering the arc of my career as a writer. So much of writing is about finding, sustaining, and growing your own voice. Graduate school, paradoxically, can make this journey a messier and more difficult one than it should be due to all of the rules of academic writing that are thrust upon you at a young age. In the last decade, coinciding with my time in Texas, I have been more comfortable seeing myself as not only a historian but as a storyteller. So, I am thrilled about receiving this award.
What’s next for you as a writer? Can you share a bit about what you’re working on now?
I am working on a book called Witness: James Baldwin’s 1963 that is an outgrowth of my forthcoming book on the civil rights movement and 1963, called Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed the Civil Rights Revolution. I am also writing a short book on Martin Luther King Jr.’ which examines how and why King’s most radical commitment to citizenship and dignity is needed now more than ever. And, I have a book project on Malcolm X’s final year that will be published soon.
About Dr. Peniel Joseph
Peniel E. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and distinguished service leadership professor and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author and editor of eight award-winning books on African American history, including The Third Reconstruction and The Sword and the Shield. He lives in Austin, Texas.
