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He moved to Fayette
County, WV in his teens to earn a living as a miner in the
coal fields and devote a few months of the year to attaining
a high school diploma. He did so by the age of 22 and by the
age of 25, he was appointed principal of that same high
school. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Berea College in
Kentucky by taking part-time classes.
He would go on to earn
advanced degrees from the University of Chicago and his
doctorate from Harvard University – only the second African
American to do so (after W.E.B. DuBois).
Woodson later joined the
faculty of Howard University and served that institution as
dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
His final professional
position was as dean of West Virginia State University.
Woodson’s long-held belief
was that the history of African Americans had been largely
ignored. He spent much of his life trying to set the record
straight, often against the wishes of other prominent
African American who did not feel that the history of one
race should be defined in ethnic or racial terms.
Woodson published a number
of books devoted to examining the history of African
Americans – A Century of Negro Migration, The Education
of the Negro Prior to 1861, The History of the Negro Church,
The Mis-Education of the Negro, for example.
“Race prejudice,” said
Woodson, “is merely the logical result of tradition, the
inevitable outcome of thorough instruction to the effect
that the Negro has never contributed anything to the
progress of mankind.”
Negro History Week was one
of his efforts to set the record straight about those many
contributions African Americans have made to the progress of
mankind. |
