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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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"
Joseph “Joel” Marcus Buchanan, a longtime educator and local legend for his work in preserving black history in Gainesville, died Sunday at UF Health Shands Hospital after going into cardiac arrest. He was 65.
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Ken Johnston was interviewed by Mike Parker (both pictured here from the Daily Sun) for the World War II Collection at SPOHP in Spring 2014. His interview is under the WWII-213 code.
Dr. Lawrence Goodwyn, distinguished professor of history at Duke University, taught at Duke from 1971 until his retirement in 2003. He recently passed away in Durham, North Carolina, on September 29, 2013. In a collaborative media portal, his life and work are highlighted by family, friends, and colleagues. Goodwyn Experiences St. Augustine, FLA: An Oral […]
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Dr. Paredes, ethnologist and applied anthropologist, worked with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians throughout his life and developed the Poarch Creek Project at SPOHP. Photo from the Poarch Creek Nation.
Patricia Stephens Due, whose belief that, as she put it, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things” propelled her to leadership in the civil rights movement — but at a price, including 49 days in a stark Florida jail — died on Tuesday in Smyrna, Ga. She was 72.
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Noted Florida author and folklorist Stetson Kennedy, best known for infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, died August 27, 2011. Throughout his life, he worked as a vocal advocate for environmental causes, labor organizing, and human rights. In October 2013, UF Special Collections and SPOHP celebrated the donation of Kennedy’s personal papers to the […]
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