Congratulations to Antwain K. Hunter (Ph.D. 2015) and Assistant Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who’s book, A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715–1865, is on the 2026 Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Award shortlist!!

Dr. Hunter’s book was one of fourteen books chosen from 158 eligible submissions. Books are judged based on their scholarship and accessibility, with an eye toward identifying exceptional works that spark dialogue within and across social and racial groups. These books also represent the Museum’s core belief that understanding the history of African Americans is integral to understanding our collective American history.

Antwain K. Hunter is a historian of slavery and freedom in North America, with a current focus on the Carolinas. His first book, A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715-1865, explores the legal and community dynamics of free and enslaved Black people’s firearm use. Hunter highlights how they pragmatically used their weapons in a variety of beneficial ways, including subsistence hunting, self-defense, agricultural labor, and rebellion. Further, individual enslavers—backed by the legislature and county courts—tried to use Black people’s armed labor for their own benefit and protect themselves from perceived threats. This examination of race, firearms, and the law offers a compelling look at the American past and better contextualizes the present.