The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, announced today that Dr. Tyrone McKinley Freeman, Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI, has been selected as a winner of the 2022 prize, alongside eight other outstanding early- and mid-career scholars of history. A selection committee of eminent scholars in the historical fields assessed hundreds of nominations from around the world as part of a rigorous process to select the winners, who will each receive $300,000 to recognize their achievements to date and support their future work.

“This is a fitting honor for Professor Tyrone Freeman as it recognizes his contributions as a scholar of the history of African-American philanthropy and the impact he will continue to have on the field in the future,” said Indiana University President Pamela Whitten.

Dr. Freeman is a historian of philanthropy who researches African-American charitable giving and activism. His work invites us to rethink traditional views of philanthropy as an arena reserved for wealthy elites, and to reconsider what philanthropy is and who can engage in it, as well as how African-American communities are understood and represented. He is the author of Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy during Jim Crow.

“I am honored to receive the Dan David Prize in History. It provides important recognition and support for my work that explores who counts as a philanthropist and what counts as philanthropy by centering African Americans as agents of giving in the past and present. Rather than defining philanthropy in limited ways and ascribing it to a small percentage of the population, history shows it is part of our common collective human heritage,” Freeman said. “This prize will enable me to continue this work and take it to even deeper and higher levels. I am very grateful to God, my wife Michelle and children, family, mentors, colleagues, the university, friends, and the Black communities of generosity that produced me.”

Dr. Freeman is widely engaged in expanding understanding of African American philanthropy and is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History where he supports the History of African American Fundraising Collecting Initiative and the Origins of Philanthropy in Early America Symposium.

Dr. Freeman is part of the inaugural cohort of winners under the newly redesigned Dan David Prize. The winners’ specialties cut across a wide array of historical disciplines – from prehistorical bioarchaeology to medieval studies to modern U.S. history – and their projects explore uncharted territory in history.