DR. CARTER GODWIN WOODSON
AND THE OBSERVANCE OF AFRICAN HISTORY

    
                                                                      

"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible
factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated."

--Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Carter Godwin Woodson has been called the father of Black History Month.  Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), the son of former slaves James and Eliza (Riddle) Woodson, was born on a small farm in New Canton, Virginia.  From an early age he possessed an unquenchable thirst for learning.  When he could, he attended the local school, and eventually went to Berea College in Kentucky.  Ultimately, he obtained a B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1907.  In 1908 he attended Sorbonne University in Paris where he became fluent in French.  He received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1912, becoming only the second African-American to earn such a degree.  Woodson taught briefly and held educational administrative posts in the Philippines, at Howard University (where he was Dean of the School of Liberal Arts), and West Virginia State College.

Dr. Woodson was a member of the Niagara Movement and a regular columnist for Marcus Garvey's weekly publication--the Negro World.  He was the founder, in Chicago in 1915, of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.  In the same year he founded the Journal of Negro History (now called  the Journal of African American History) --a publication still in existence.  As a contributing writer for the the Journal of Negro History, Woodson wrote more than a hundred articles and 125 book reviews. 

Carter Godwin Woodson was the founder of Associated publishers, founder and editor of the Negro History Bulletin, and the author of more than thirty books.  Probably Woodson's best known book is The Mis-Education of the Negro, originally published in 1933 and still relevant today.  In the Mis-Education of the Negro Dr. Woodson stated that:

"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.  You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it.  You do not need to send him to the back door.  He will go without being told.  In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."

In 1926 Woodson initiated the annual February observance of Negro History Week.  He chose February for the observance because February twelfth was Abraham Lincoln's birthday and February fourteenth was the accepted birthday of Frederick Douglass.  By the 1970s, Negro History Week had expanded to become Black History Month. 

Dr. Carter G. Woodson was truly a great man; an intensely dedicated soldier in the cause of African freedom and redemption. We proudly salute and praise him, and as we rapidly approach the year 2000 and the new millennium we dedicate ourselves to extending Black History Month to the entire year and the unending and unceasing celebration, recognition and commemoration of the global history of African people.

SOURCES:
Journal Of Negro History, Founded & Edited by Carter G. Woodson
Negro History Bulletin, Founded & Edited by Carter G. Woodson

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This Month in History

February 2010

February 4, 1986 | Sojourner Truth stamp, by Jerry Pinkney, issued by United States Postal Service

Jerry Pinkney, who created the first Black Heritage stamp in 1978, typically included a second element in his designs to provide historical context. For this stamp commemorating Sojourner Truth, he took a slightly different approach, opting for a powerful double portrait to emphasize Truth’s relentless crusade for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.

SUNDAY	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY
	1 1960 Four students form North Carolina A&T College started Sit-in movement at Greensboro, N.C., five-and-dime store. 1902 - Playwright, poet, author Langston Hughes born	2 1915 Biologist Ernest E. Just receives the Spingarn medal for his pioneering in cell division and fertilization. 1807 - Congress bans foreign slave trade	3 1989 Six time All-Star Bill White was named president of National League. 1956 - Autherine Lucy enrolls as the first African American student at the University of Alabama.	4 1986 - Sojourner Truth stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service. 1913 - Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer who sparked Montgomery bus boycott, born.	5 1990 - Columbia University graduate and Harvard University law student Barack Obama became the first African American named president of the Harvard Law Review.	6 1993 Tennis player Arthur Ashe dies. Ashe was the first African American to win at Wimbledon. 1867 - Robert Tanner Jackson becomes first African American to receive a degree in dentistry.
7 1926 Carter G. Woodson creates Negro History Week. In 1976 it became Black History Month.	1986 - Ophrah's On! Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show. 1986 Figure skater Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the Women's Singles of the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship competition, was a pre-med student at Stanford University.	9 1995 Bernard Harris, an African-American astronaut, takes a space walk. 1971 Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Leroy "Satchel" Paige. 1952 Author Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man wins the National Book Award	1992 - Author Alex Haley dies American biographer, scriptwriter, author who became famous with the publication of the novel ROOTS, which traces his ancestry back to Africa and covers seven American generations as they are taken slaves to the United States.	11 1990 - Nelson Mandela is released Nelson Mandela's greatest pleasure, his most private moment, is watching the sun set with the music of Handel or Tchaikovsky playing. Locked up in his cell during daylight hours, deprived of music, both these simple pleasures were denied him for almost 3 decades.	12 1909 NAACP founded by a group of black and white citizens committed to social justice; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation's largest and strongest civil rights organization. The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice.	13 1635 - America's first public school, the Boston Latin School, opened in Boston. Black students were excluded from attending. 1957 Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized at New Orleans meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. as president.
14 1867 Morehouse College organized in Augusta, Georgia. The institution was later moved to Atlanta. New registration law in Tennessee abolished racial distinctions in voting. Valentine's Day	15 1848 Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school integration suit on her behalf. Presidents' Day	16 1923 On this day Bessie Smith makes her first recording, "Down Hearted Blues," which sells 800,000 copies for Columbia Records. 1857 Frederick Douglass elected President of Freedman Bank and Trust.	17 1997 Virginia House of Delegates votes unanimously to retire the state song, "Carry me back to old virginia" , a tune which glorifies slavery. 1891 - Churn Invented A. C. Richardson, a black inventor, invented the churn, patent #466,470	18 1688 First formal protest against slavery by organized white body in English America made by Germantown (Pa.) Quakers at monthly meeting. The historic "Germantown Protest" denounced slavery and the slave trade.	19 2002 Vonetta Flowers became the first black gold medalist in the history of the Winter Olympic Games. She and partner Jull Brakken won the inagural women's two-person bobsled event. 1942 - Tuskegee Airmen initiated The Army Air Corps' all African American 100th Pursuit Squadron, later designated a fighter squadron, was activated at Tuskegee Institute. The squadron served honorably in England and in other regions of the European continent during World War II.	20 1895 - Death of Frederick Douglass (78), Anacostia Heights, District of Columbia. Douglass was the leading Black spokesman for almost fifty years. He was a major abolitionist and a lecturer and editor. 1929 Writer Wallace Thurman's play Harlem opens in NYC. It is the first successful play by an African American playwright.
21 1965 El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated, Malcolm X (39) assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom at a rally of his organization, 11 months after his split from Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam.	22 1841 Supreme Court heard arguments in the Amistad case. 1989 - Col. Frederick Gregory was the first African American to command a space shuttle mission.	23 1868 - Dr.William Edward Burghardt DuBois, author of The Souls of Black Folk, educator and civil rights advocate, is born in Great Barrington, Mass.	24 1864Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in 1833. She worked from 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts.	25 1870 Hirman R. Revels of Mississippi sworn in as first Black U.S. senator and first Black representative in Congress. 1964 Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) defeated Sonny Liston for world heavyweight boxing championship.	26 1965 - Civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson died after being shot by state police in Marion, Ala. 1985 On this day at the Grammy Awards ceremony, African-American musicians won awards in several categories. Lionel Richie's 'Can't Slow Down' won best album of 1984. Tina Turner's 'What's Love Got to Do With It' took the best record slot and earned her the title Best Female Pop Vocalist. The Pointer Sisters won best Pop Group for 'Jump.'	27 1988 - Debi Thomas becomes first Black to win an Olympic medal in figure skating. 1872 Charlotte Ray graduates from Howard Law School. She is the first African American lawyer in the U.S. 1869 Congress adopted the 15th constitutional amendment, making it illegal for the US or any single government to deny or abridge the right to vote "on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."
28 1984 - Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy awards. 1932 Richard Spikes invented/patented automatic gear shift. 1940 Richard Wright's Native Son published.	29 (if this were Leap Year, and it's not) 1940 On this day, Hattie McDaniel known for her supporting roles became the first African American to win the Oscar Award for her role as 'Mammy'in the movie 'Gone With The Wind'. Not only was she the first African American to receive this award, but the was the only woman to have received it until Whoopi Goldberg received the same award for her role in the movie 'Ghost' 50 years later.

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