Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Americans have been celebrating the recognition of Black History Month since 1926 when historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson started "Negro History Week". Black history had barely begun to be studied or even documented when the tradition originated.

Enrolled in high school at age twenty, Dr. Woodson was born to parents who were former slaves and spent his childhood working in the Kentucky coal mines. He graduated from high school within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.

The scholar was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the black American population-and when blacks did figure into the picture, it was generally in ways that reflected the inferior social position they were assigned at the time.