By: Daylun Armstrong, Jaden Majewski, and Valery Warner
February 6, 2020
“What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.”
“The Father of Black History,” also known as Carter G. Woodson, worked endlessly to establish Black History Month nationwide.
He did this to celebrate and appreciate the achievements, culture, strengths, and struggles of African-Americans.
Woodson was born on December 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia. He was the son of Anna Eliza Riddle Woodson and James Woodson, who had been formerly enslaved. Before he went to school, he was a sharecropper and a miner to help support his family.
When he began high school in his later years, he showed outstanding achievement and earned his diploma in just two years.
Continuing on the path of education, he attended Berea College in Kentucky and worked for the U.S. government as an education superintendent in the Philippines.
Soon after, Woodson earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Chicago and was the second African-American ever to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.
Woodson helped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (later named the Association for the Study of African American Life and History), the scholarly publication Journal of Negro History (later named the Journal of African American History), the Negro History Bulletin (later named the Black History Bulletin), the African American-owned Associated Publishers Press, along with more than a dozen books.
His goals were created to empower and support African-Americans.
He campaigned for schools and organizations to engage in studying African-American history, which commenced Negro History Week in February of 1926.
This led to Black History Month, which is celebrated in the month of February (to honor the birth months of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former President Abraham Lincoln).
Unfortunately, Woodson died on April 3, 1950, at the age of 74 due to a heart attack.
Even though he departed, his legacy and teachings continue on.
He stated, “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,”
Carter G. Woodson will never be forgotten.
{Information found: https://www.biography.com/scholar/carter-g-woodson}
THE RETURN OF THE EYE 