Winners of 2012 Lukas Prize Project Awards announced

Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism have named the 2012 winners of the Lukas Prize Project Awards.

A Vanderbilt University professor has won the 2012 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for his sensitive account of the fine line people of mixed race have tread in the United States since the nation’s beginning. The Mark Lynton History Prize will go to a University of Virginia professor for her unusual and groundbreaking work on the history of common sense. The J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award was won by a former A.P. reporter and editor who is completing a book on the world’s inability to help Haiti.

The judges said of “The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White” (Penguin Press) by Daniel J. Sharfstein, an associate professor of law at Vanderbilt University: “The book makes real the fact that, not so long ago, American citizens were forced into hiding their lineage and identity just to live free in this democracy, the perils and sense of loss, no matter which road they chose, and the price being paid even to this day by their descendents, and by extension, all of us.” The winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize receives $10,000. One finalist was named: the late Manning Marable for “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention" (Viking Press)....