PHILADELPHIA Thomas Sugrue, professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named one of 12 inaugural winners of  $50,000 fellowships to support work to improve race relations and illuminate civil-rights issues.

Last year, Wall Street financier Alphonse Fletcher Jr., founder and chairman of Fletcher Asset Management, established the awards, to be given annually to individuals and organizations.

Besides Sugrue, artists, writers and scholars who received the award include law professor Anita Hill, former Black Panther Party activist Kathleen Cleaver and New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch.

With his fellowship, Sugrue will complete a book, "Sweet Land of Liberty: The Unfinished Struggle for Racial Equality in the North," the first full-scale history of civil rights outside the South, from the Great Depression to the present. Sugrue, a specialist in 20th-century American politics, urban history and race relations, is author of the award- winning book, "The Origins of the Urban Crisis."