Inaugurated in 1990, the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities honors distinguished individuals who have strengthened the educational, cultural, and civic life of North Carolinians through their life’s work. The award is named for its first recipient and a founding member of North Carolina Humanities, the late Dr. John Tyler Caldwell.
- 2024 – Jacquelyn Dowd Hall and Robert Korstad
- 2023 – Clyde Edgerton
- 2022 – Steve Crump
- 2021 – Alex Albright
- 2020 – James W. Clark, Jr.
- 2019 – Jaki Shelton Green
- 2018 – Margaret Donovan Bauer
- 2017 – Bland Simpson
- 2015 – Harvey Gantt
- 2014 – Edwin Graves Wilson
- 2013 – Sally Dalton Robinson and Russell M. Robinson II
- 2012 – Betty Ray McCain
- 2011 – David Price
- 2010 – Fred Chappell
- 2009 – Marsha White Warren
- 2008 – Walt Wolfram
- 2007 – Emily Herring Wilson
- 2006 – Benjamin Eagles Fountain, Jr.
- 2005 – Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
- 2004 – Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
- 2003 – Wilma Dykeman and Hugh Morton
- 2002 – Reynolds Price
- 2001 – Houston Gwynne (H.G.) Jones
- 2000 – Thomas J. Lassiter, Jr.
- 1999 – William C. Friday
- 1998 – Dorothy Spruill Redford
- 1997 – Charles Bishop Kuralt
- 1996 – William W. Finlator
- 1995 – John Marsden Ehle
- 1994 – Anne Firor Scott
- 1993 – Samuel Talmadge Ragan
- 1992 – Doris Waugh Betts
- 1991 – John Hope Franklin
- 1990 – John Tyler Caldwell
