Do you remember celebrating Negro History Week in school? Thanks to DR. CARTER GODWIN WOODSON I did just that until I graduated from high school in 1958. In 1926, he announced that it would be celebrated the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Fifty years later – 1976 — it became Black History Month.

DR. CARTER G. WOODSON is considered the “father of black history”. The son of former slaves, he was born in New Canton, Virginia on December 19, 1875 and grew up working on the family’s small farm. He had a special interest in the history of African-Americans, but was able to attend school only four months a year. He had a great appetite for learning, but wasn’t able to begin formal education until he was 20.

He completed high school in just two years, and enrolled in Berea College where he earned a bachelor’s degree. At the University of Chicago, he was awarded a second undergraduate degree and a master’s degree. He later studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1912, he became the second African-American ever to earn a PhD at Harvard University. Supporting himself as a school teacher and principal, he taught in the Philippines for a short time. He also taught in DC’s segregated public school system, while doing research for his dissertation at the Library of Congress.