Bill Doggett is an independent scholar, a historian, archivist and lecturer who specializes in African American performing arts history. His study of the significance of the San Francisco Bay Area to the development of the careers of African American concert and opera singers, 1925–2005, was published in the journal of The San Francisco History Museum, The Argonaut (2015). Doggett has presented multi-media lectures on African American concert singer history and the history of the Negro spiritual in conferences and Visiting Guest Lecturer presentations at UC Irvine, UC Davis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, The San Francisco Public Library, and elsewhere.

Beginning in 2014, Doggett was commissioned by The Recorded Sound and Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress to produce a pilot on the role of technology in popular entertainment at the dawn of the 20th Century and its role in defining our understanding of race for their online portal, The National Jukebox. The launch is anticipated in 2018 and is titled “#BlackVoicesMatter: Race, Music and Message at the dawn of Recorded Sound.” He has been recognized for leadership in utilizing history and the arts to foster intergenerational dialogue within Bay Area communities by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, and State Senator Mark Leno. Doggett was the 2012 recipient of The Heritage Keepers Award for exhibitions curation and archives presented by the Bay Area Friends of Negro Spirituals, and has been a featured presenter from 2015 to the present in the speaker series of The Friends of San Francisco Public Library’s city wide Black History Month events.

Bill Doggett has a Cum Laude Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from UCLA. He is the great grandson of Richmond, Virginia slaves, Abbie and Henry Clarke, who were two of the founders of Richmond’s historic Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in 1867. His father, the Reverend John N Doggett, Jr., was the founding minister for the newly formed Downs Memorial United Methodist Church in North Oakland, CA.

This talk is made possible with support from Department of African American and African Studies, as well as the William E. Valente Endowment in Music.