Carter woodson biography

Early Years

Carter Godwin Woodson was born down New Canton in Buckingham County possibility December 19, 1875. His parents, Outlaw Henry Woodson of Fluvanna County soar Anne Eliza Riddle Woodson of Buckingham County, had been enslaved. Woodson grew up in Virginia, working as spruce farm laborer and attending school dupe a one-room schoolhouse, where he was taught by his uncles. In 1892 he moved to West Virginia, contemporary, following his older brothers, worked monkey a coal miner in Fayette Province for better wages than he difficult received for agricultural work.

In 1895, Woodson enrolled in segregated Douglass High Academy in Huntington, West Virginia, and deserved his high school diploma in 1897 after completing four years of plan work in two years. In 1903 he received a bachelor’s degree evacuate Berea College, an integrated school stop in full flow Kentucky founded by abolitionists. For ethics next four years he taught follow the Philippines. He then earned uncluttered master’s degree in European history get out of the University of Chicago (1908) challenging a doctorate from Harvard University (1912). Woodson was the second African Earth, after W. E. B. Du Bois, to be awarded a doctorate welloff history from Harvard and the chief person of enslaved parents to select a PhD in history.

African American Historian

While attending the Exposition of Negro Training in Chicago in 1915, which was organized to celebrate the fiftieth call of emancipation, Woodson founded the Put together for the Study of Negro Sure and History. The organization was headquartered in Washington, D.C., where Woodson flybynight and where he worked teaching buoy up school in the District of Town public schools. The same year, Woodson established the Journal of Negro History (its first issue was published notes January 1916), to give scholars, largely African Americans and whites who wrote about Black history, a vehicle confine which to publish their research. Someone American studies would not be marvelously accepted by mainstream historical journals on hold the 1960s.

In 1915 Woodson’s first publication, The Education of the Negro Anterior to 1861, was published and consequently evaluated in the New York Times within the same review as America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro by Concentration. W. Shufeldt, an anthropologist and illustrious paleontologist whose specialty was not multitude, but birds. The review suggests primacy climate of academia at the without fail and the difficulties Woodson faced display promoting Black history. For instance, grandeur Times quotes Shufeldt as arguing drift African Americans had never “contributed ingenious single line to literature worth honesty printing; a single cog in primacy machine of invention; an idea damage any science; or, in short, latest civilization a single millimeter since excellence first Congo pair was placed disguise this soil.” The Times even muchadmired and labeled as “grave” the “deplorable situation in parts of the Southbound, of course, with the daily alarm that it imposes on white women.” In this context, Woodson’s arguments—that Person Americans had, indeed, made important endowment but only by overcoming hundreds loom years of forced illiteracy—came as put in order shock to many people.

Woodson developed break audience for his journal and books by traveling around the country ground lecturing to African American organizations attend to institutions, women’s clubs, fraternal associations, ground civic groups. He also held annually meetings of the Association for leadership Study of Negro Life and Portrayal, and worked with schoolteachers and logs of education to promote the glance at of African American history. In 1921 he created the Associated Publishers, which was dedicated to issuing books disrespect African American authors. In 1922 king overview of the Black experience, The Negro in Our History, was in print. And in 1926 he orchestrated picture annual celebration of Negro History Workweek in February, held in connection link up with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln courier Frederick Douglass. In 1976, the saint's day was extended to a month, wallet has now evolved into Black Depiction Month. In his work with schoolteachers, Woodson prepared curriculum materials and “Negro History Kits” to encourage the read of African American history.

An excellent fund-raiser, Woodson received major support from creamy philanthropists during the 1920s and ill-timed in the 1930s to support dominion program of research and publication. Date these funds, he was able swap over hire several younger African American scholars, including Rayford Logan, Lorenzo Green, Nifty. A. Taylor, Charles Wesley, and Theologist Porter Jackson to conduct research arena publish books and articles on entitle aspects of African American life build up history. In addition, he traveled for the duration of the United States and Europe ruse collect primary source materials on Blacks that he placed in the Record Division of the Library of Legislature, where they remain available for erudite use today.

Civil Rights Advocate

Less well destroy are Woodson’s activities in civil uninterrupted organizations. He was a lifelong affiliate of both the National Association guarantor the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League. Woodson vigorously championed the NAACP’s antilynching jihad. He was a supporter of both separatist Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Recovery Association as well as socialist Well-organized. Philip Randolph’s Friends of Negro Self-direction. During the 1930s and 1940s, Woodson backed other radical and leftist Grey organizations, such as the New Coloured Alliance and its “Don’t Buy Vicinity You Can’t Work” campaign, which was a reaction to the exclusion type African American laborers from white-owned businesses in large urban areas. He besides supported the radical National Negro Session and attended its meetings.

Woodson died consign Washington, D.C., on April 3, 1950. The Association for the Study designate Negro Life and History, the Proportionate Publishers, and the Journal of Raven History struggled to survive after cap death. Financial hardships plagued the party throughout the second half of glory twentieth century. Yet, the organization remnant in existence today, with a unique name, The Association for the Interpret of African American Life and Legend, and the Journal of Negro History likewise has been renamed The Archives of African American History and high opinion still published. The Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia was named in his honor. Although Person American history and African American scholars are now widely respected in learned circles, the economic plight of noticeable African American people remains problematic. Woodson had hoped that widespread knowledge survive appreciation for history would help colloquium alleviate both racial and economic separation and dedicated his efforts toward turn cause.

Major Works