Eric K. Washington is an independent historian and a Bundles Community Scholar of Columbia University. Hismost recent book is Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal (Liveright, 2019), the biography of aonce influential Black railway labor figure and his Harlem-based workforce. The book won the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History(New York Academy of History), the GANYC Apple Award(Guides Association of New York City) and special recognition as a finalist for the Brendan Gill Prize(Municipal Art Society of New York). Washington is a board member of the Biographers International Organization (BIO), for which he spearheads the Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship, an annual award for African American biography,.