Lectures

“In just over an hour Mr. Katz’s documented stories and fascinating images impart enormous amounts of information, and also generate tangible audience excitement. Since his vivid examples and fetching humor easily connect with listeners, he has consistently filled our Museum’s lecture halls to capacity.”
— Roberto Mucaro Borrero, Senior Program Coordinator, Public Programs, Department of Education, The American Museum of Natural History

For half a century, as William Loren Katz wrote forty books and edited 212 research volumes, he also become an acclaimed lecturer — from New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution, The Western History Association to Johns Hopkins University, The Institute for Texan Cultures, and the Schomburg Library and more than fifty other universities, museums, and libraries; on network TV and radio; and in Europe and Africa. He has hosted his own history news program on Pacifica radio.

Katz’s books and illustrated lectures have won praise from Dr. John Hope Franklin, Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Dr. Cornel West, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Betty Shabazz, Dr. Ralph Bunche, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

William Loren Katz’s lectures explore vital historical issues:

  • For centuries Africans and Indians battle against European invaders and slaveholders changed history.
  • To defeat people of color Europeans stressed “divide and rule.”
  • Black women and men built dozens of frontier towns
  • Black Indian lawmen, scouts and outlaws shaped western territories
  • Does U.S. racial thinking still impact people of color?

In 2008 the Oberlin Heritage Center hosted Katz’s lectures and received an “Excellence Award” from Ohio’s Association of Historical Societies and Museums. It also received an “outstanding accomplishment certificate” from the Ohio State Assembly and Senate for inviting the “nationally known scholar, historian and educator, William Loren Katz” to present at their event.

For a list of Katz’s past presentations and upcoming lectures, please visit the Appearances section.