Anniversary of Carter G. Woodson's Death

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history” - Carter G. Woodson

(Carter G. Woodson)

Carter G. Woodson was born on December 19th, 1875 in Buckingham County, Virginia, USA. His family moved to West Virginia when Woodson was a child. At age 17 Woodson went to earn a living as a coal miner. At age 20 Woodson went back to high school and earned a diploma in less than 2 years.

(Woodson as a young man)

From 1897 to 1900 Woodson taught in Fayette County. In 1903 he earned a Bachelor degree in Literature from Berea College in Kentucky. From 1903 to 1907 Woodson was a school supervisor in the Philippines. In 1908 he was awarded an A.B. and A.M. from the University of Chicago. He was a member of the first black professional fraternity Sigma Pi Phi and a member of Omega Psi Phi. In 1912 he completed his PhD at Harvard University where he was the second African American to do so. He then became a professor at Howard University. In 1915 Woodson published The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861.

(Woodson in 1915)

Woodson became affiliated with the Washington, D.C. branch of the NAACP, and its chairman Archibald Grimké. In 1924, he published the first survey of free black slaveowners in the United States. In 1926 Woodson promoted the first Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., designated for the second week in February, to coincide with marking the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In 1933 Woodson wrote the book The Mis-Education of the Negro. Woodson has corresponded with W. E. B. Du Bois, John E. Bruce, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Hubert H. Harrison, and T. Thomas Fortune among others from the 1920’s to the 1940’s.

(Woodson in the 1940’s)

On April 3rd, 1950 Woodson died of a heart attack in Washington D.C. He was 74 years old.

(A statue of Woodson)

Today is the 66th anniversary of his death. Take time to remember this great educator today.

Books by Carter G. Woodson

• A Century of Negro Migration (1918)
• The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1919)
• The History of the Negro Church (1921)
• The Negro in Our History (1922)
• Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, Together With Absentee Ownership of Slaves in the United States in 1830 (1924)
• Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830, Together With a Brief Treatment of the Free Negro (1925)
• Negro Orators and Their Orations (1925)
• The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written During the Crisis, 1800–1860 (1927)
• Negro Makers of History (1928)
• African Myths, Together With Proverbs (1928)
• The Rural Negro (1930)
• The Negro Wage Earner (1930)
• The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
• The Negro Professional Man and the Community, With Special Emphasis on the Physician and the Lawyer (1934)
• The Story of the Negro Retold (1935)
• The African Background Outlined: Or, Handbook for the Study of the Negro (1936)
• African Heroes and Heroines (1939)
• The Works of Francis J. Grimké (1942)
• Carter G. Woodson's Appeal: The Lost Manuscript Edition (2008)