Carter G. Woodson’s Vision: Preserving African-American History For Future Generations

by Atiya Jordan

February 2, 2024

Thanks to his employment of the Black press and impressive public relations methods, the pioneering educator built a Black History Month movement for us to celebrate today.

During his era, Carter G. Woodson used his genius as a leading cultural icon, historian, opinion journalist, newsmaker, and CEO/publicist to preserve and popularize a subject clouded by misinformation.

He was known for his monumental efforts behind the production and dissemination of the information he and his colleagues collected about Black achievements. Thanks to his employment of the Black press and impressive public relations methods, the pioneering educator built a Black History Month movement for us to celebrate today.

“America owes Dr. Woodson a debt of great gratitude,” Langston Hughes wrote in his Chicago Defender column, “Here to Yonder,” in 1945. “For many years now he has labored in the cause of Negro history, and his labors have begun to bear a most glorious fruit. Year by year the observance of Negro History Week has grown. Today the week is observed all across America.”

The Father Of Black History Month

Besides building what is known today as Black History Month and its sponsoring organization, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), in 1915, Woodson founded the Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin. Woodson and his association sought to incite dramatic changes in attitudes about African-American history and culture, raising funds to print the Journal of Negro History. Negro History Week was launched in 1926.

At both national and local levels, Woodson won crucial support from Black newspapers. As Burnis Morris demonstrates in Carter G. Woodson: History, the Black Press, and Public Relations (2017), the large circulation of Black newspapers like The Chicago Defender and The Philadelphia Tribune helped amplify Negro History Week nationwide while praising those who held celebrations in their communities. The ASNLH’s publications reportedly had a combined circulation of 4,500 by 1950. 

This Black History Month, BLACK ENTERPRISE is remembering Woodson for his tireless ambition to set the records straight about Black history. We gathered several ways Woodson leveraged the power of Black press to do so.

1. The Philadelphia Tribune Covered Black News

Woodson lived and worked from 1538 Ninth Street Northwest in Washington, D.C. The address was disseminated across Black papers. For example, a note by the Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the United States, urged readers to write to Woodson.

“The investment of a two cents stamp will be the best investment you ever made,” the article read Records show that thousands of teachers, preachers, and citizens did so because, as Hughes described it, they could gain access to the “dates and data of our struggle for a place in the democratic sun.”

2. The Chicago Defender Spread The Word

In 1932, Woodson published an editorial entitled “History Week and What it Means,” in The Chicago Defender, one of the most widely read Black-owned newspapers. He outlined the accomplishments of Black Americans and explained what was taught about those achievements in the country’s elementary and secondary schools. 

He wrote, “[u]nless Negro History Week can be used to accomplish such a purpose the mere celebration will be meaningless.”

3. The Baltimore Afro-American Covered Growth Of Black History Movement

In 1926, the Baltimore Afro-American reported on how two dozen local schools celebrated the first Negro History Week. “A daily assembly celebration of the Negro in history composed the celebration at School No. 111,” the article noted. Years later, the paper ran a piece by Woodson on the significance of “saving the records of the Negro” for future generations.

“In the homes of Negroes…are valuable manuscripts like letters, diaries, wills, deeds, bills of sale, manumission papers and the like in which are hidden the facts of Negro history not mentioned in the books, newspapers, and magazines of our day,” Woodson wrote. “To have these data on hand to pass them on to the fair-minded investigators of tomorrow that they may tell the story of the race when this generation is no more—this is the challenge that comes to every Negro and to every friend of the race who has any regard for the future of this people.”

4. The Norfolk Journal And Guide Called For Community Involvement

In 1933, the Norfolk Journal and Guide ran a story under the headline, “People Unwittingly Foil Efforts of Historians Through Inability to Know Worth of Documents They Possess.” The message furthered Woodson’s calls on the community to take steps in celebrating the annual observance.

“The people throughout the country have been called upon to do certain definite things,” Woodson noted in an article in Norfolk Journal and Guide in 1927. “They are asked to organize their community through committees for the celebration, to appeal to their board of education for the adoption of Negro history textbooks, to interest their library and school in securing a shelf of scientific works on the Negro and pictures of distinguished men of the race, to urge everyone to write the Association all he knows about Negro family history and to send in any important documents bearing on the record of the Negro.”

5. The Pittsburgh Courier Supported Black History Movement

The Pittsburgh Courier’s editors ran a piece in 1927 ahead of the second celebration of Negro History Week supporting the Black History movement.

“For Dr. Carter G. Woodson has been devoting his entire time to a careful collection of authentic acts and deeds performed by Negroes.  He has been connecting the lives of individuals, the happenings of communities and the changing habitats of Negroes for the purpose of handing down to the future reading world some undeniable truths concerning this race of ours.”

“The Pittsburgh Courier joins readily in spreading the news [of Negro History Week] to its readers and urging them to join heartily in this week of celebration…Let us support Dr. Woodson.  Let us help him unearth the hidden secrets of our tribe.”

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