Nick Kotz

Who is Nick Kotz?

Nathan "Nick" K. Kotz, born in San Antonio, Texas, is an American journalist, author, and historian. His most recent book, 'The Harness Makers Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas', tells the story of Ukrainian immigrant Nathan Kallison’s journey to the United States. He is best known for his 2005 book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America chronicling the roles of President Johnson and Dr. King in the passage of the 1964, 1965, and 1968 civil rights laws. Kotz won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1968 "for his reporting of unsanitary conditions in many meat packing plants, which helped insure the passage of the Federal Wholesome Meat Act of 1967."

As a reporter for the Des Moines Register and the Washington Post, and as a freelance writer, Nick Kotz has won many of journalism's most important honors, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence, the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award, and the first Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award. His study of American military leadership won the National Magazine Award for public service. His book Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics, and the B-1 Bomber won the Olive Branch Award.