Acknowledging her tremendous contributions made toward criminal justice reform, the Heinz Family Foundation has honored Michelle Alexander with a 2016 Heinz Award. Citing the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for sparking national dialogue on issues of criminal justice and racial disparities, the Heinz Award comes with a $250,000 prize. Alexander said in a Facebook post that she is “creating a fund for the purpose of donating this money and book royalties [to] organizations and advocates who are committed to courageous and creative work for racial justice.” The New Press first published The New Jim Crow in 2010 and, with 750,000 copies sold to date, it remains at the top of the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list (#4 the week of April 17, 2017). Alexander recently accepted a new position as a visiting professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York in addition to serving as a senior fellow at the Ford Foundation.