Black Lives Matter: Dr. Carter G. Woodson & The History of Black History Month

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of Blacks in U.S. history.  There once was a time when there was no acknowledgment of the history of Blacks, as if, Black lives didn’t matter. This year, with the theme “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity,” February marks the 45th year that Black History Month has been officially recognized. Dr. Carter G. Woodson and his Omega Psi Phi Fraternity brothers organized the first commemoration celebrating the positive contributions of Blacks to the development of America in 1924.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American History Museum

Dr. Carter G. Woodson is known as the father of Black History Month. His legacy lives on through a museum that is dedicated in his honor. The Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American History Museum in Petersburg, Florida first opened its doors in April 2006. In the late 1990s, St. Petersburg Housing Authority was granted a HOPE VI grant by HUD, which provided funding for the renovation of a more than 60-year-old housing complex. 

The residents of the community decided to forego their community center to have an African American Museum to preserve, present, and interpret African American history and culture. The name of the museum was determined by youth attending an area recreation center when a naming contest was conducted. The winning name was Dr. Carter G. Woodson for his legacy as the Father of African American history.

The Woodson Museum is currently housed in what was the community center and rental office for St. Petersburg’s first developed African American neighborhood and public housing community. The museum offers a variety of Black historical art as well as the first Black Lives Matter street mural (pictured above). Along with empowering Black bookclubs, like ‘Let’s Get Lit!,’  a book club discussion of Black authors, the Museum offers educational, counseling conversations such as ‘Can We Talk: Building Allies with Women of All Races and Cultures’, ‘Brothers Begging to Breathe: The Voices of the Unheard’, ‘Curious Collector: Conversation Cafe’ (African American Art Discussions). These groups allow African Americans to find their strength in numbers and intelligence as they share the legacy of Woodson in a creative aspect.

History of Black History Month

It was not until 1976 that President G. Ford dedicated the entire month of February to Black history, although recognition of Black history started long before. During the summer of 1915, an alumnus of the University of Chicago,  Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to Chicago to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation, sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans traveled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery.

Awarded a doctorate at Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a Black history display. Despite being held at the Coliseum, the site of the 1912 Republican convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Inspired by the three-week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of Black life and history before leaving town. On September 9, 1915, Woodson met with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASAFH).

He hoped that others would popularize the findings that he and other Black intellectuals would publish in “The Journal of Negro History“, which he established in 1916. As early as 1920, Woodson urged Black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. A graduate member of Omega Psi Phi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week.

Their outreach was significant, but Woodson desired greater impact. As he told an audience of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) students, “We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.” In 1925, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility. He sent out a press release announcing the second week of February as Negro History Week in 1926.

Why the second week of February some may ask? It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping Black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition. Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the Black past. He was asking the public to extend their study of Black history, not to create a new tradition. In doing so, he increased his chances for success.

Like most ideas that resonate with the spirit of the times, Negro History Week proved to be more dynamic than Woodson or the Association could control. By the 1930s, Woodson complained about the intellectual charlatans, black and white, popping up everywhere seeking to take advantage of the public interest in Black history. He warned teachers not to invite speakers who had less knowledge than the students themselves. Increasingly publishing houses that had previously ignored Black topics and authors rushed to put books on the market and in the schools. Instant experts appeared everywhere, and non-scholarly works appeared from “mushroom presses.” In America, nothing popular escapes either commercialization or eventual trivialization, and so Woodson, the constant reformer, had his hands full in promoting celebrations worthy of the people who had made the history.

ASALH’s mission was to educate and inspire African descendants. In the 1960s, when civil rights were thriving many colleges adopted Black history into their studies. By the late 1960s, as young Blacks on college campuses became increasingly conscious of links with Africa, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week at a quickening pace. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat or Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association’s annual theme.

There are numerous black influential individuals whose hard work has built the legendary Black History Month. It is important to find the root of our history. History is so significant and relevant, the more that one knows of the ancestral history the further one can go to make one own. Living in the legacy of those who have paved the way for our greatness and success. Not only that but Black History Month is a time to educate oneself, unify with the community, and overall light a fire for peace and prosperity.

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