Holt named to National Council on Humanities

Holt is one of 10 people named to the board by President Clinton. The nominations were confirmed by the U.S. Senate in July.

The National Council on the Humanities is the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The council is composed of 26 people who meet four times a year to advise the NEH chairman on policy matters and the awarding of grants. Last year, the NEH awarded nearly $160 million to museums, libraries, universities, scholars and teachers.

"Over the past three decades, our nation's cultural life has become immensely richer because of the work of the National Endowment for the Humanities," Clinton said. He added that Holt and the other recent appointees "will help that tradition of excellence to continue to flourish."

A University faculty member since 1987, Holt is president of the American Historical Association. He specializes in African-American, Southern and British Caribbean history and is especially interested in the work of African-American intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Holt is the author of "The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938."

Holt received his B.A. in 1965 and his M.A. in 1967 from Howard University and his M.Phil. in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1973 from Yale. Before coming to Chicago, he served on the faculties at Howard, Harvard and Michigan. In 1990, he was named a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.