Awards

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.

White Dove Award Recipient 

The White Dove-Imani-Rainbow Lodge, a Whitehall, Ohio Peace and Reconciliation Ministry awarded its 2000 White Dove Peace Award to William Loren Katz. Tessie Nellie-Moriah Belue, founder and director of White Dove-Imani-Rainbow Lodge announced Mr. Katz as the first recipient of its White Dove Peace Award in The Four Winds the ministry’s quarterly newsletter. It describes him as one “whose life and work exemplify a sincere desire to promote peace and reconciliation and serve as a bridge between African and Native American people.” The Ministry believed that his books, lectures and articles promote understanding among people of African and Native-American descent they merit wide recognition.

While the White Dove Peace Award consists solely of a simple certificate, Ms. Belue said, “Mr. Katz was a Peacemaker”; and this honor recognizes his outstanding contributions to harmony among African Americans and Native Americans. Future White Dove Peace Award recipients, she said, will receive Katz’ “Black Indians” and a certificate. Tessie Nellie-Moriah Belue and the author met last year when Mr. Katz presented his slide lecture on “Black Indians” at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. An African American of Cherokee descent, Ms. Belue has often cited “Black Indians” in The Four Winds newsletter, which seeks to promote reconciliation between black and red people.