author
Carter Godwin Woodson
1875–1950
A pioneering historian and writer, he changed how Americans understand Black history and helped create the celebration that later became Black History Month. His work brought long-overlooked stories into schools, scholarship, and public life.
3 Audiobooks
A Century of Negro Migration
by Carter Godwin Woodson
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War
by Carter Godwin Woodson
The History of the Negro Church
by Carter Godwin Woodson
About the author
Born in Virginia in 1875 to parents who had been enslaved, Carter G. Woodson worked in coal mines as a young man before pursuing an education with unusual determination. He later studied at Berea College, the University of Chicago, and Harvard, where he became the second African American to earn a Ph.D. in history.
Woodson believed that Black history had been ignored or distorted in mainstream scholarship, so he set out to build the field himself. In 1915 he helped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and he also launched the Journal of Negro History. Through his books, teaching, and publishing work, he insisted that African American history was central to the story of the United States.
He is often called the "Father of Black History" because in 1926 he started Negro History Week, which later grew into Black History Month. Woodson died in 1950, but his influence continues wherever students, readers, and listeners encounter a fuller and more honest account of American history.