Abstract
In February 1926, a broad collection of schools and communities in the United States celebrated Negro History Week for the first time. For the next 50 years, Negro History Week continued to grow in scope and to develop as a launching pad for other initiatives designed to popularize the study of African American history. In 1976, as the United States commemorated its bicentennial, Negro History Week expanded to Afro-American History Month. Since then, each February, schools around the country have continued to recognize an annual celebration of what is now called Black History Month. Like other “set-aside” months (for example, Women’s History Month), Black History Month has its share of supporters and detractors. Its advocates do not consider Black History Month an end in itself; they continue to work toward the goal of a social studies curriculum that fully integrates Black history within courses taught through-out the year. Carter G. Woodson, the educator and historian who first developed the idea of Negro History Week in 1926, spent much of his professional life working toward this same goal. In this chapter, I explore the early years of Negro History Week and examine both Woodson’s rationale for the initiative as well as his vision for its implementation as a platform to serve more far-reaching curricular goals.
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Notes
For the most complete biography of Woodson see Jacqueline Goggin, Carter G. Woodson: A Life in Black History (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1993).
Maghan Keita, Race and the Writing of History: Riddling the Sphinx (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 51–69;
August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986).
Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, “Making Black History Practical and Popular: Carter G. Woodson, the Proto Black Studies Movement and the Struggle for Black Liberation,” Western Journal of Black Studies 28, no. 2 (2004): 372–383; Dagbovie, The Early Black History Movement, 47.
Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, African American History Reconsidered (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 77–81.
Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 16–31.
W. D. Wright, Black History and Black Identity: A Call for a New Historiography (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 34–35.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week,” The Journal of Negro History 11 (April 1926): 238.
Mary McLeod Bethune, “Clarifying Our Vision with the Facts,” Negro History Bulletin 1 (February 1938): 8.
Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (Washington, DC: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1933), 151–152.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week,” The Journal of Negro History 11 (April 1926): 239.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Eleventh Year,” The Journal of Negro History 21 (April 1936); 105.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Eleventh Year,” The Journal of Negro History 21 (April 1936): 106.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week,” The Journal of Negro History 11 (April 1926): 241.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Third Year,” The Journal of Negro History 13 (April 1928): 122.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Fifth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 16 (April 1931): 126.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Tenth Year, The Journal of Negro History 20 (April 1935): 124.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Tenth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 20 (April 1935): 126.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-The Sixth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 17 (April 1932): 119–120.
Carter G. Woodson, “Starting Right,” The Negro History Bulletin 1 (February 1938): 12.
Carter G. Woodson, “The Celebration of Negro History Week,” The Journal of Negro History 12 (April 1927): 108.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-the Tenth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 20 (April 1935): 125–126.
Carter G. Woodson, “What Schools Are Doing,” The Negro History Bulletin 1 (October 1937): 7–8.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-the Fourth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 14 (April 1929): 113.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week,” The Journal of Negro History 11 (April 1926): 238; Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 85; Dagbovie, The Early Black History Movement, 50.
Carter G. Woodson, “The Struggle of the Negro against Bondage,” The Negro History Bulletin 1 (February 1938): 2–3.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week Celebration,” The Journal of Negro History 15 (April 1930): 131.
Lorenzo J. Greene, “Dr. Woodson Prepares for Negro History Week, 1930,” The Negro History Bulletin, 28 (Summer 1965): 195.
Carter G. Woodson, “Negro History Week-the Ninth Year,” The Journal of Negro History 19 (April 1934): 116.
Carter G. Woodson, “Annual Report of the Director,” The Journal of Negro History 28 (October 1943): 377–378.
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© 2012 Christine Woyshner and Chara Haeussler Bohan
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Bair, S. (2012). The Early Years of Negro History Week, 1926–1950. In: Woyshner, C., Bohan, C.H. (eds) Histories of Social Studies and Race. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137007605_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137007605_4
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