The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture.

The foundation confers awards in several categories, such as fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoir/autobiography, and lifetime achievement, each September in a ceremony free and open to the public and attended by the honorees.

Winners previously include Zora Neale Hurston (1943), Langston Hughes (1954), Martin Luther King Jr. (1959), Maxine Hong Kingston (1978), Wole Soyinka (1983), Nadine Gordimer (1988), Toni Morrison (1988), Ralph Ellison (1992), Edward Said (2000), and Derek Walcott (2004).

The jury has been composed of prominent American writers and scholars since 1991, when long-time jury chairman Ashley Montagu, a renowned anthropologist, asked poet Rita Dove and scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. to help him judge the large number of books submitted annually by publishers across the disciplines.

In 1996, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, writer Joyce Carol Oates, and historian Simon Schama (all of whom retired before the 2024 awards) joined.