About the Editors
Jacob U’Mofe Gordon, Ph.D.; LL.D. (Hon), Emeritus Professor of African and African American Studies, University of Kansas; Kwame Nkrumah Endowed Chair of African Studies, University of Ghana; and Senior Fulbright Scholar.
Dr. Gordon, a historian, was Founding Chair of the Department of African Studies (now Department of African and African American Studies) at the University of Kansas in 1970. He is the author or co-author of over 30 books, book chapters, numerous articles in academic journals, and research reports. His published books include his most recent book, The Selected Works of an African Scholar in the Diaspora: A Retrospective Analysis (2021); Africa and the African Diaspora in the Development of the Global North: The American Story (2020); Revisiting Kwame Nkrumah: Pathways for the Future (2016); African Traditional Leadership: Past, Present and the Future (2014); The African Presence in Black America (2004); African Studies for the 21st Century (2004); Black Leadership for Social Change (2000); and The African American Male in American Life and Thought (2000). A recipient of many national and international Awards, Dr. Gordon is a Founding Life Member of the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) in 2013, in Accra, Ghana. He serves as Historian for the National Alumni Association of his alma mater, Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida; and the Founding President of Alachua County African & African American Historical Society, Inc., in Gainesville, Florida.
Paul Ortiz, Ph.D., Professor of History, Affiliate Faculty in African American Studies, Faculty Advisory Council, Center for Latin American Studies, and Director, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida.
Dr. Ortiz is a third-generation military veteran and a first-generation university graduate. Between 2001 and 2008, he was a professor in the Department of Community Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His book, An African American and Latinx History of the United States, was identified by Bustle as one of “Ten Books About Race to Read Instead of Asking a Person of Color to Explain Things to You.” In 2020, Fortune magazine listed the volume as one of the “10 books on American history that actually reflect the United States.” Dr. Ortiz is also the author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida (2005). He co-edited and conducted oral history interviews for the award-winning book Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South (2001; 2008). He recently co-edited People Power: History, Organizing, and Larry Goodwyn’s Democratic Vision in the Twenty-First Century, which will be published by the University Press of Florida in 2021. Dr. Ortiz has published essays in The American Historical Review, Latino Studies, The Oral History Review, Cultural Dynamics, and many other academic journals. He has been interviewed by Agencia De Noticias Del Estado Mexicano, ARD German Radio and Television, Newsweek, Telemundo, The Guardian, BBC, Hong Kong Daily Apple, and a variety of other media sources on aspects of Latinx and African American history such as voter suppression, social movements, and immigration, among other topics. Dr. Ortiz was President of the Oral History Association in 2014-2015. He is currently President of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (FEA/NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO).
