Dr. William Loren Katz was the author of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage and 40 other books on African American history. His books have won awards and his research, writing, and lectures have earned widespread praise from noted scholars such as John Hope Franklin, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., John Henrik Clarke, Howard Zinn, James M. […]
Laura Mae Dixie, known as “the Mother of the Movement in Tallahassee, Florida,” passed away last month at the age of 92. Her life is a testament to the oft-forgotten role of African-American working-class people — especially women — in the making of the modern civil rights movement in the South. (Photo by Deborah Hendrix.) […]
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Dear Friends of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, As you will read in this exciting end-of- year progress report, SPOHP has reached more students, scholars, and members of the general public than ever. We have conducted community-based oral history workshops with churches, businesses, university classes, veteran’s groups, African American history museums, Native American nations […]
On June 8th, 1967, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats launched a ferocious two-hour attack on and attempted to sink the USS Liberty as she sailed under a U.S. Flag in International waters. Of the 294 men aboard the vessel, 34 were killed and 174 were wounded by a well-coordinated, multi-wave assault that included the use […]
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The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program had the privilege of getting to know Frank Towers as one of our narrators in our valuable Veterans History Project. Over the years we came to know him as a leader for his fellow veterans, especially WWII veterans. We always had a deep respect for his heroism in WWII, […]
Ms. Margaret Block, lifelong civil rights activist, teacher, and friend, passed away in June 2015. Her efforts to organize, agitate, and educate for social justice inspired men and women across the country to work together for freedom in America, including students of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program’s Mississippi Freedom Project, whom she led for many years. Margaret worked […]
Janos Zsigmond Shoemyen, 93, died December 7, 2014, at his home in Alachua, FL. Shoemyen was a noted writer, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He worked in the publications department of IFAS and taught Creative Writing for Santa Fe College’s Continuing Education Program for more than thirty years. For a detailed biography of Janos Shoemyen, read “The […]
Local civil rights leader Reverend Thomas A. Wright died Tuesday. He was 94. Reverend Wright was the pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Gainesville. Read more from The Gainesville Sun, article by .
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A native of Chile, Dr. Hernán Vera, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, passed away last week. He was a prolific scholar in research spanning a range of topics, including race and ethnic relations and sociology of knowledge. A native of Chile, he received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Kansas in 1974. His co-authored books […]
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Dr. Block’s life and work at the University of Florida is remembered in the Gainesville Sun. His oral histories at SPOHP archives are in GHS 062 (1971) and UF 346 (2014).
Read more "Remembering Dr. Seymour S. Block, UF Chemical Engineering"