CARTER GODWIN WOODSON

Woodson (1875-1950), called the "Father of Modern Black Historiography,” was born in New Canton, Virginia, into a poor family. Because his family needed him to help out on the farm, the young Woodson could attend school only sporadically. Working as a coal miner in Kentucky to pay his college tuition, he eventually earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1907 and 1908 respectively, then went on to Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1912. It was he who founded the Association for the Study of Negro History and Life (now, the Association for the Study of African American History and Life) in 1915, and in 1921 he established the Associated Publishers, which still produces the Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin. Five years later he proposed and established an annual observance, called "Negro History Week," now expanded into a month-long event in February, during which schools, libraries, museums, and other cultural agencies pay tribute to the African American contributions to all fields of endeavor. Woodson wrote several books on the African American experience, including his best-known work The Mis-Education of the Negro, first published in 1933.

MARION THOMPSON WRIGHT

Wright (1902-1962) was born in East Orange, New Jersey, and graduated from Howard University in 1927. She worked as a case supervisor for the Newark Department of Pubic Welfare while researching her Ph.D. dissertation and became the first black historian to receive a doctorate from Columbia University and one of the first African American women to earn that degree in history. Later she joined the faculty of Howard University and became a full professor there in 1950. She is noted as an historian of African Americans in New Jersey. Wright pioneered the study of race relations in New Jersey and explored the juxtaposition of New Jersey's long tradition of school segregation while committing itself to racial justice. Her professional life was marked by disappointments. Because she was a woman, she was discriminated against as a faculty member at Howard University, denied promotion and often referred to by the University President as "our little sister."