A graduate of both Syracuse University (1950, with a BA in history) and New York University (1952, with an MA in Secondary Education), Katz taught in the New York City and State secondary education systems for 14 years. He has served as a consultant for numerous boards of education nationwide.

Katz's "Education and Books" column has appeared in the New York Daily Challenge since 1986, and he has hosted an interview program on Pacifica Radio station WBAI-FM in New York. He was the recipient of the 2000 White Dove Peace Award from the White Dove-Imani-Rainbow Lodge of Whitehall, Ohio.

• Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage (1997, Simon Pulse) ISBN 0-689-80901-8
• The Black West: A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States (1996, Touchstone) ISBN 0-684-81478-1
• Black Pioneers: An Untold Story (1999, Atheneum) ISBN 0-689-81410-0
• Breaking The Chains (1998, Simon Pulse) ISBN 0-689-81919-6
• Black Women of the Old West (1995, Atheneum) ISBN 0-689-31944-4
• Black Legacy: A History of New York's African Americans (1997, Atheneum) ISBN 0-689-31913-4
• Eyewitness: A Living Documentary of the African American Contribution to American History (1995, Touchstone) ISBN 0-684-80199-X
• The Cruel Years: American Voices at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (with Laurie Lehman, 2001, Beacon Press) ISBN 1-891843-06-0
• Time Ghost (1995, Margaret K. McElderry) ISBN 0-689-80027-4

Essays by Katz

• What Goes Around Comes Around, Tuesday October 19, 2004
• The Meaning of Hugo Chávez, Tuesday, August 24, 2004
• Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson, Wednesday April 28th, 2004
• Justice and African Seminoles, March 15, 2001
• We Are Repeating the Mistake We Made in the Philippines 100 Years Ago, May 3, 2004