Carter G. Woodson: podcast appearances and interviews

Carter Godwin Woodson was an American historian, author, and journalist known as the father of Black history. He founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and was among the first scholars to study the history of the Black African diaspora in the United States. In 1916, he established The Journal of Negro History, and in 1926, he launched the celebration of Negro History Week, which later evolved into Black History Month. Woodson was a proponent of Afrocentrism, emphasizing the centrality of people of Sub-Saharan African descent in the study of history and the human experience.

Born in Virginia to parents who were former slaves, Woodson postponed his education to work in the coal mines of West Virginia. He later graduated from Berea College, became a teacher and school administrator, and earned graduate degrees at the University of Chicago. He was the second African American to earn a PhD from Harvard University, the only person whose parents were enslaved in the United States to do so in history. Recognizing the marginalization of black scholars, Woodson worked to establish structures supporting scholarship in black history and black historians. Throughout his career, he taught at Howard University and West Virginia State University, both historically black colleges, but spent most of his professional life in Washington, D.C., managing the ASALH, engaging in public speaking, writing, and publishing.