Former history professor wins Pulitzer Prize

Heather Ann Thompson, a former UNC Charlotte faculty member, has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in history for “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy.”

Thompson, currently a professor at the University of Michigan, was a member of the History Department from 1997 to 2009.

She returned to the Queen City in November 2016 to discuss “Blood in the Water” for a public event sponsored by the University’s Center for the Study of the New South, housed in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

According to the University of Michigan, Thompson won in the Pulitzer Prize category of Letters, Drama and Music “for a narrative history that sets high standards for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry in seeking the truth about the 1971 Attica prison riots.”

Photo (by Lynn Roberson): Thompson speaking at the Center for the Study of the New South event in November 2016.