By Abayomi Azikiwe
Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), the founder of Negro History Week in 1926, remains an icon in the historical studies of people of African descent in the United States.
Woodson was born in Virginia in 1875 during the period of intense repression against African Americans as the federal government began to abandon the efforts to reconstruct democracy in the U.S. in the decade after the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War (1861-1865).
The historian worked to send himself through undergraduate school and later won a scholarship to Harvard University. After completing his Ph.D at Harvard, Woodson taught in the Washington, D.C. public schools and later at Howard University. He would eventually resign from teaching at the segregated historically Black institutions in order to build the Journal of Negro History (1916) and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLAH) beginning in 1915.
By the time that the Negro History Week commemoration was established, the so-called “Harlem Renaissance” was well underway ushering in a flourishing of literary and other artistic forms of expression. Woodson opened an office for ASNLAH in Washington, D.C. where he coordinated his research, publishing and lecture tours for the organization.
According to the Zinn Education Project regarding the early efforts of Woodson:
“From the beginning, Woodson was overwhelmed by the response to his call. Negro History Week appeared across the country in schools and before the public. The 1920s was the decade of the New Negro, a name given to the post-World War I generation because of its rising racial pride and consciousness. Urbanization and industrialization had brought over a million African Americans from the rural South into big cities of the nation. The expanding Black middle class became participants in and consumers of Black literature and culture. Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive whites stepped forward and endorsed the efforts.”
Many of the issues which plagued African Americans during the late 1860s and 1870s have resurfaced periodically over the last century-and-a-half. Even with the ending of involuntary servitude and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, the ruling interests in the U.S. were severely split over the role of African people in society.
The passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution ostensibly provided citizenship rights to the formerly enslaved Africans regarding due process and equal protection under the law for all people irrespective of race, creed and national origin. However, this would be a controversial Amendment which would be subject to contradictory interpretations in the courts, legislative bodies and the executive branch.
A series of Supreme Court rulings including the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the Cruikshank Ruling of 1876 and the Civil Rights Cases (1883) in essence nullified the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution as it related to the equal rights of African Americans. At the conclusion of the 19th century, the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling (1896) of the high court proclaimed that segregation was legal as long as the state provided comparable facilities for African Americans. This provided the rationale for the fallacious notions of “separate but equal” which was never implemented to the benefit of the African American people.
Understanding the political and historical significance of these court rulings are essential for developing a clear perspective on the contemporary situation in the U.S. Undoubtedly, the ruling class in the U.S. is concerned about the rising consciousness among the oppressed peoples related to the legacy of institutional racism and economic exploitation.
The reemergence of the administration of President Donald Trump has unabashedly declared an ideological war on the study and dissemination of African American history. This attempted suppression of African American history is part and parcel of the oppressive apparatus which built the former British colonies and the breakaway U.S. state from late 18th century through the present period.
Ironically, the official federal recognition and designation of February as Black History Month was done during the Republican administration of President Gerald R. Ford in 1976, some 50 years after the initial work of Woodson. Today’s Republican Party has set out to abolish any efforts to preserve and disseminate the progressive history of the U.S.
Some Pioneers in African American Historical Studies
Years prior to the work of Woodson, a pioneering historian, Rev. George Washington Williams (1849-1891), published the first comprehensive study of the history of African Americans in 1882 entitled “The History of the Negro Race in America (1619-1880). Williams was born a free African in Pennsylvania and would later serve in the Union Army during the Civil War.
After meeting King Leopold II of Belgium, he visited the Congo Free State in 1890 where he was appalled at the conditions of the African people living under the draconian rule of the imperialists. Williams wrote an extensive open letter to the Belgian monarchy decrying the oppressive and exploitative conditions in Congo.
Later figures such as Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) would emerge as scholars, writers and organizers in the areas of African American education and Pan-Africanism. Cooper was a graduate of Oberlin College in the Liberal Arts and Mathematics.
She attended the Pan-African Conference in London during July 1900 where other notable leaders such as Barrister Henry Sylvester Williams and Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois were in active attendance. This gathering in 1900 is considered by many as the first significant international meeting aimed at building unity among African people since the 1893 Congress on Africa which was held in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition.
Cooper worked as an educator in Washington, D.C. where she published her book entitled: “A Voice from the South, By A Black Woman of the South” in 1892. This text is today considered the initial contemplative articulation of African American Feminism.
Later in 1925, Cooper received her Ph.D from the University of Sorbonne in France. Her dissertation was on the history of the Haitian Revolution and its connection with the Jacobin movement in France.
Her dissertation was later published in book form entitled: “Slavery and the French and Haitian Revolutionists: L’attitude de la France a l’egard de l’esclavage pendant la revolution.” Cooper brings the dimension of race and European society to an understanding of the French Revolution and its Haitian counterpart which marked the first successful slave revolt which led to the formation of an independently recognized Black Republic.
It is important to note that the advent of Cooper and other African American women scholars and public intellectuals such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Fannie Barrier Williams, Eliza Mary Church Terrell, among others, predated the work of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and Dr. Woodson. Du Bois would receive his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1896 focusing on the Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States from 1638-1870.
Du Bois’ research and teaching would land him at Atlanta University after conducting a study on the social conditions of African Americans in Philadelphia during 1899. At Atlanta University, Du Bois would conduct research and host annual conferences to highlight the necessity of social scientific research on African Americans designed to impact public policy.
Such an approach within academia during the early 20th century would not be accepted resulting in Du Bois’ departure from academia for a generation. He would become a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and the following year established The Crisis Magazine.
In its earliest phase, “The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races”, mobilized many of the most advanced artists and scholars in the U.S. and throughout the African Diaspora. One important member of the editorial staff was Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961).
Fauset was born in New Jersey and excelled academically at an early age. She would graduate from Cornell University in the early 20th century with a bachelor’s degree in classical languages. Later she received a master’s from the University of Pennsylvania in 1919.
A professional educator in Washington, D.C., she would leave teaching between 1919-1926 to serve as the literary editor of The Crisis. In 1921, Fauset would represent the NAACP at the Second Pan-African Congress in Western Europe. During 1925-1926, she would spend months in Algeria under French colonial rule where she wrote a series of essays on her observations.
Fauset would mentor numerous African Americans in the literary field such as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and many others. She is recognized in the present period as the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance along with being a prodigious author of numerous poems, short stories, novels and journalistic coverage of domestic and international questions.
The Politics of African American History
Examining these historical developments provides an indication as to why the administration of President Trump has issued several memorandums claiming to ban the commemoration of African American History Month along with any official recognition of women, Latin Americans, Asian-Pacific Islanders, the LGBTQIA+ community, etc. One key document emanating from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was quite intriguing considering the decades-long role of spy agencies in undermining the struggle for African American freedom. The DIA, under orders from Trump, Hegseth and company have cancelled “ observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pride Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance and other cultural or historical annual events in response to President Donald Trump’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace.” It also ends any activities honoring “Black History Month… and National Hispanic Heritage Month.”
Yet, despite these official and unofficial attempts to prohibit and dampen enthusiasm for the celebration of the diverse history of the peoples of the U.S., the recognition of African American History Month continues unabated in commercial, academic and public settings. The struggle for the recognition of African American history remains a key element in the overall movement for liberation and social emancipation.
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