Great Plains Talk: Caleb Gayle

Caleb Gayle will give a talk about his book, “Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State” (2025, Penguin Random House), as the winner of the 2026 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.

In “Black Moses,” also longlisted for the National Book Award, Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed idea to create a state within the U.S. governed by and for Black people - and the racism, politics and greed that thwarted him. As the sweeping changes brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction began to wither, anger at the opportunities available to newly freed Black people rose and both Blacks and whites searched for new places to settle. That was when McCabe, a Black businessman and a rising political star in the American West, set in motion his plans to found a state. His chosen site: Oklahoma, a place that the U.S. government had deeded to Indigenous people in the 1830s when it forced thousands of them to leave their homes under Indian Removal.

“Winning the Stubbendieck is both surprising but affirming of my goal to help readers see this part of the country for all of its diversity and rich complexity,” Gayle said. Gayle is an award-winning journalist author “We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power.” A professor at Northeastern University, he is a contributing writer at”The New York Times Magazine.”

Gayle will be awarded the book prize as part of this event. This talk is part of the Paul A. Olson Great Plains Seminar Series.

Each year the Center for Great Plains Studies presents the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for the previous year’s best book on the Great Plains. The prize carries a cash award of $10,000, generously supported by Jim and Cheryl Stubbendieck. Only first edition, full-length, nonfiction books copyrighted in 2025 were evaluated for this year’s award, which is chosen by an independent committee.