Who created Black History Month and why?

Carter Godwin Woodson created the precursor to Black History Month which was named "Negro  History Week" in 1926.  Negro History Week was celebrated during the second week of February by some educational departments and churches in the  U.S.  In 1969, Black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University made a proposal to expand the celebration to the month of February. In 1976, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History co-founded by Carter G. Woodson, extended the celebration.  In the same year, President Gerald Ford recognized Black history month saying that Americans should "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history." [1] [2] [3] The timeline below (Diagram 1) shows the sequence of events that led to what we now know as "Black History Month."

Diagram 1: Timeline of Black History Month, History

Who Was Carter G. Woodson?

Carter Godwin Woodson was an educator, author, publisher, historian and co-founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History later renamed The Association for The Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).  He received a Bachelor of Letters degree from Berea College in Kentucky, a Bachelor and Masters of Arts from University of Chicago in 1908, and, his Ph.D in history from Harvard.  He was the second African American to receive a Ph.D after W. E. B. DuBois and the only one to ever receive one who had enslaved parents.[4]

As a young man, Woodson helped his parents on their farm and was therefore unable to attend primary school regularly.  He ended up mastering subjects through self instruction.  Though his parents were prohibited from attending school due to the restrictions, laws and inhumane treatment during their enslavement, Woodson would often mention that he learned the most important lessons of life from his father James Henry Woodson. He noted that his parents instilled a thirst for education in him.  It is important to note that his strong will must have been inherited from his grandfather, uncle and father who refused to be beaten and instead beat the slave owner or overseer.  In fact, his father escaped from slavery after he beat his owner and flagged down Union troops who went back to the plantation and whipped the owner as well.[4] 

In his teens, Woodson held a number of odd jobs including driving a garbage truck, working in a coal mine and hiring himself out as a farm laborer.  Perhaps it was in an after-work gathering place for Blacks that had the most impact on his keen understanding of the identification of historical information about African Americans missing from the established school curriculum.  Woodson was recruited to read the daily paper at the gatherings because he was one of the few coal miners who was able to read and he was given an incentive of doing so in exchange for free fruit and ice cream.  Woodson likely would compare his school text books with the current events of the day and noticed the disparities therein.

Carter G. Woodson received his education from Berea College (Bachelor of Letters), University of Chicago (Bachelor's and Master's of Arts degrees), and received his Ph.D at Harvard University.  Woodson later became Dean at Howard University's College of Arts and Sciences, an Historically Black College or University (HBCU).
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​“The mere imparting of information is not education.”
-- Carter G. Woodson

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Why is black history month celebrated in February?

Black History Month is celebrated in February as an homage to the birthdates of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass [1].  Carter G. Woodson noted that their birthdays were 2 days apart (Feb. 12, and 14th respectively) and were both celebrated separately in years past in the Black community.  Therefore, in 1926, Woodson as co-founder of The Association for the Study of African American Life and History   promoted "Negro History Week" to take place the second week in February in Washington, D.C. Repeated through the years, it grew into Black History Month in 1976. [3]

What a monumental feat this was for a Black boy born in 1875, just 10 years after the end of slavery to even have aspirations of getting a Ph.D let alone his attaining a profound understanding and critique of America's educational system.  It almost seems impossible, but his biography speaks for itself.  I wondered about whether his parents had special privilege's to have passed along to him such wisdom beyond his years. 

Though there are no full-length biographies of Carter G. Woodson, Jacqueline Goggin managed to provide a bridge to the missing pieces of his life outside of his scholarly history in a book called, "Carter G. Woodson - A Life in Black History."  After all, how does one go from being born to parents who were in bondage ten years prior to a man with a Ph.D and a plan to improve that same educational institution as it regards Black people?  One has to wonder who were his influences at a time when noone had attained the educational heights that he pursued.  Two facts about his life stood out:

1.  His grand father, father, and brother were going to be punished on the plantation for something and each ended up beating the overseer or master.

2.  His grandfather and father instilled in him to "insist always as recognition as human beings; and if necessary to fight to the limit for it." His father commanded his children to "never accept insult from whites, compromise their principles, mislead their fellowmen, or betray their people."[4]

​"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

Why Celebrate Black History Month?

Carter Godwin Woodson, also known as the Father of Black History Month, was spot on when it came to pointing out key areas for improvement in the educational system.  Without the focus Black History Month provides and if left to America's present day curriculum, the achievements, contributions, and value added by people of African ancestry is left out.  Given the importance of the traffic light, air conditioner, ironing board and shoe lasting machine for example, discussion of American inventions is incomplete without mentioning these African American contributions.  An understanding of Black accomplishments provides a balanced and accurate view of history.

I am proof positive that even in 1989 when I graduated with my Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology that it is possible to achieve great heights in an educational system without receiving any focused study on African American History.  

The personality that was key in learning Electrical Engineering, for example was  William Shockley.  He invented the transistor, a building block of integrated circuits.  Shockley was repeatedly  acknowledged and revered in my study as an Electrical Engineer.  He also was an avowed racist and believed and wrote scientific papers that Black people were genetically inferior to whites.  He stated,

"My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and, thus, not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in the environment." [5 at 52:00min]

Imagine the effect this could have on the psyche of a Black student striving to become an engineer.  Missing from my studies was exposure to people like Katherine Johnson or Raye Montague.   Katherine Johnson was instrumental in providing the successful calculations to NASA's flight to the moon.  Ray Montague created the first computer generated U.S. naval ship.  As the great  Malcolm X said, the history books he read had "been made into white histories."  He found out that "the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.” Instead, as an African American, I was taught the accomplishments of a personality who thought disparagingly of Black people.  Without saying directly that Black people are inferior, we are taught to respect the work of a racist.  His work is still widely used today without any delineation about the improper and inaccurate application of his theories.

In Woodson's seminal work, "The Miseducation of the Negro," he points out that the education system was used to justify the oppressive system of slavery by attributing all accomplishments of value in society to the white man.  Blacks, therefore, having no contributions otherwise, are dismissed as a "non-entity," are useless to society, and despised.  It is imperative to wider society to maintain this status quo by convincing black people of our inferiority in all areas including arithmetic, science, theology, and philosophy.    He goes on to say that due to this heavy does of propaganda, "educated" Blacks continue the cycle of ignorance to their own people since it is all that has been taught and therefore known.

Woodson explains the history of education after the Civil War, and through Reconstruction.  He compares and contrasts the practical Industrial education with a classical education.  Black people in all cases were relegated to the dregs of society.

Black Law students were taught they belonged to the same criminal element that they were a part of and that laws were different depending on color.  In the fine arts, instructors start in Greece, but don't mention the African influence.  In medical schools, Blacks were taught of their inferiority as germ carriers and that certain maladies were due to bad hegienic practices of Blacks. Africa and Africans were always mentioned in a negative light.  Due to this egregious bias against Africa and Africans, education serves as a racist propagandist machine churning out "Mis-educated" Blacks which maintain this backward system.

Woodson says, "real education means  to inspire people to live more abundantly to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better." 

Black History Month, as started by "Negro History Week" challenges teachers to do independent research outside of the established curriculum to fulfill this focus. 

Books written by Carter G. Woodson

1. Miseducation of the Negro
2. The Education of the Negro
3. The History of the Negro Church
4. African Heroes and Heroines
5. African Myths and Folktales
6. Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830
7. A Century of Negro Migration
8. Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830: Together with Absentee Ownership of Slaves in the United States in 1830
9. Carter G. Woodson's  Appeal
10. Negro Orators And Their Orations

“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.”
-- Carter G. Woodson

As a side note, I encourage you to view a walking tour of Carter G. Woodson's home in DC, which also served as the headquarters of ASALH.  it was noted that even his employees were well respected writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston who are legends unto themselves. 

Thank you as always for reading this post.  I do  hope you will consider purchasing some of the books mentioned herein from Afriware Books, Co. ​