Paul Ortiz (historian)

Paul Ortiz (born 1964) is an American historian. His book Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 received the 1990 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Book Prize.^[1] Dr. Ortiz is Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida and is Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.^[2]

Life and education

Ortiz served as a paratrooper and radio operator, attaining the rank of sergeant, in the United States Army from 1982 to 1986 with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 7th Special Forces Group in Central America. He received the US Armed Forces' Humanitarian Service Medal for meritorious action in the wake of the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, in November, 1985.^[3]

Paul Ortiz received his Ph.D. in 2000 from Duke University, where he studied History. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the Evergreen State College in 1990 in history and political economy after transferring from Olympic Community College. As a graduate student at Duke University, Ortiz served as the research coordinator for "Behind The Veil," an African American oral history project. He was part of the research team that received the Oral History Association's Outstanding Oral History Project Award in 1996. Ortiz worked as a volunteer labor organizer with the United Farm Workers of Washington State and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in North Carolina.

Publications

Ortiz's publications include Emancipation Betrayed (University of California Press) a history of the Black Freedom struggle in Florida, and Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Jim Crow South (New Press). His book awards include the Lillian Smith Book Prize and the Harry T. and Harriett V. Moore Book Prize. His published essays appear in a wide array of publication venues and types, including Latino Studies, The Oral History Review, Radical History Review, Truthout, Against the Current, Southern Exposure, and popular press in writings about African American and Latino histories and politics. His most recent publication is An African American and Latinx History of the United States (2018).

• An African American and Latinx History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, 2018)
• Emancipation Betrayed by Dr. Paul Ortíz, University of California Press (2006)
• Remembering Jim Crow by William H. Chafe (Editor), Raymond Gavins (Editor), Robert Korstad (Editor), with Dr. Paul Ortíz and others New Press (2008)

Notes

External links

• About the Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
• Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida
• African American and Latinx History of the United States (2018)
• Oral History Association