Contact Information
Professor Paul Ortiz (Ph.D. Duke University, 2000) is the author of An African American and Latinx History of the United States, which received the 2018 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. His wrote Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920. He also co-edited and conducted oral history interviews for the book, Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South.
Ortiz recently co-edited a book with Wesley Hogan titled People Power: History, Organizing and Larry Goodwyn’s Democratic Vision in the Twenty-First Century. He is currently working on two books under contract with Beacon Press: A Social Movement History of the United States and Settler Colonialism and the ‘War on Terror’: 1492 to the Present.
Professor Ortiz teaches undergraduate courses and supervises graduate fields in African American history, Latina/o & Latinx history, comparative ethnic studies, U.S. South, labor, social movement theory, oral history, digital humanities, ethnography and other topics.
Professor Ortiz is the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Under his leadership, SPOHP has received three national academic awards. SPOHP offers digital humanities production and experiential learning classroom and fieldwork opportunities year-round. The Proctor Program has led 15 field work trips to the Mississippi Delta where students have interviewed veterans of the civil rights movement. Most recently, SPOHP students helped to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Elaine Massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas. The program has also facilitated field work on special topics including global climate change, Latinx studies, African American history, LGBT studies and many other areas. SPOHP is the national repository for the 2017 Women’s March on Washington Archive. (If you would like information on internship or volunteer opportunities with SPOHP, please contact me!)
Ortiz was president of the Oral History Association during the 2014-2015 term.
He joined the Department of History in 2008 after teaching at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Department of Community Studies between 2001-2008. He was a visiting assistant professor in history and documentary studies at Duke University between 2000-2001.
Between 2020-22, Paul co-chaired the UF Presidential Task Force on African and Native American History and the University of Florida. He wrote the introduction to the report.
Professor Ortiz is a former member of the Faculty Advisory Council for the UF Center for Latin American Studies. He is an affiliated faculty member of African American Studies, Latin American Studies, the Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies, Art & Art History and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.
Paul Ortiz is a third-generation US military veteran. Paul served in the United States Army from 1982 to 1986 with the 82nd Airborne Division and 7th Special Forces Group in Latin America where he was a radio operator and instructor for mobile training teams in multiple combat zones.
Paul is the faculty advisor for the UF Dream Defenders, Por Colombia, CHISPAS, Democratic Socialists of America, and other groups. In 2013, he received the César E. Chávez Action and Commitment Award from the Florida Education Association, AFL-CIO.
He is president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO)
Ortiz is a National Archives Distinguished Scholar for 2022-2023, concentrating on Latinx History.