Carter G. Woodson and the Miseducation of the Negro

“Carter Godwin Woodson (1875-1950) was born on December 19, 1875 at New Canton, Va. He was an American historian who first opened the long-neglected field of black studies to scholars and also popularized the field in the schools and colleges of blacks. To focus attention on black contributions to civilization, he founded Negro History Week in 1926. This celebration and remembrance would later evolve into Black History Month.”

Taught to read by family members, Woodson worked as a coal miner in West Virginia and put himself through high school. He graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1903. In 1912 he earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He was the second African American to earn a Harvard doctorate. Woodson was an active promoter of black education. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the Journal of Negro History, the Associated Publishers, and Negro History Bulletin. In 1926, he began promoting Negro History Week during the second week of February to celebrate the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In the 1960s it became Black History Month. Woodson is most famous for his book, The Miseducation of the Negro.