Historian Carter G. Woodson was born to poor, yet land-owning, former slaves in New Canton, Virginia on December 19, 1875.  During the 1890s, he hired himself out as a farm and manual laborer, drove a garbage truck, worked in coalmines, and attended high school and college in Berea College, Kentucky—from which he earned a B.L. degree in 1903.  In the early 1900s, he taught black youth in West Virginia.  From late 1903 until early 1907, Woodson worked in the Philippines under the auspices of the US War Department.  Woodson then traveled to Africa, Asia, and Europe and briefly attended the Sorbonne in Paris, France.  In 1908, he received an M.A. degree in History, Romance languages, and Literature from the University of Chicago in Illinois.  In 1912, while teaching in Washington, D.C., he earned his doctorate in history from Harvard University. 

In 1915, Woodson published his first book, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 and co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).  In 1916, he singlehandedly launched The Journal of Negro History, now The Journal of African American History.  In 1918, Woodson published A Century of Negro Migration and became the principal of Armstrong Manual Training School, Washington, D.C.  From 1919 until 1920, he was the Dean of Howard University’s School of Liberal Arts and from 1920 until 1922 he served as a dean at West Virginia Collegiate Institute.  In 1921, he published The History of the Negro Church and founded the Associated Publishers, Inc.  After founding the ASNLH, he also became active in black organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Friends of Negro Freedom, and the Committee of 200.