Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson legitimized and popularized the history of African American people through the Negro Historical Foundation, founded in 1915. In February 1926, his organization launched Negro History Week. When mainstream historians largely ignored or debased the Black presence in the American narrative, Dr. Woodson labored to inject a fair portrayal of African Americans into the national record. - Assoc. members pose at the historic Whitelaw Hotel during a 1925 conference at Howard U.

Carter Godwin Woodson was born to formerly enslaved parents on December 19, 1875 in New Canton, VA. Raised in the aftermath of the violent Reconstruction era, he lacked access to formal education. He toiled in the New River Gorge coalfields until 20, and finally began his formal education at Frederick Douglass High School in Huntington—at the time one of only a few Black high schools. Self-taught until this time, he still graduated in 2 years, and eventually earned a spot at Harvard University.

A Harvard graduate, Dr. Woodson produced his dissertation with university professors Edward Channing and Albert Bushnell Hart, as committee member and dissertation advisor respectively. The two plainly expressed to Woodson their convictions that African Americans were inferior. Hart paternalistically encouraged education as a mechanism for improving what he believed was an innate intellectual inadequacy within African Americans.

Salem Poor, featured in this 1976 postage stamp, purchased his freedom from slavery and then fought in the battles at Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, and White Plains. Woodson said his professors ignored such examples and argued that the Negro had no history and found laughable the idea that Crispus Attucks’ role in the Boston Massacre was an important contribution to our fight for independence. They challenged Woodson to undertake research proving that African American history was worthy of study.

Woodson researched African American history long before arriving at Harvard, and continued to do so for the rest of his life, as an educator and prolific scholar. He meticulously researched, wrote, and published innumerable works on almost every aspect of Black life. Despite starting his work during what many scholars refer to as the "nadir," or lowest point, in American race relations, his work sparked a mass movement to recognize and celebrate Black resilience and contributions to the U.S.

Woodson believed that Negro History Week (now African American History Month) was too little time to impart what should rightly b taught throughout the year. His mission was to, "emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history." He formed The Associated Publishers in 1920 to produce educational material for classrooms nationwide. This included posters of prominent African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery as a child and became a renowned orator and statesman.

Woodson believed one cannot understand the foundation of American government, tax structure, or changing legislative developments, without understanding slavery, its economic implications, and influence on political party identity. For instance, Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation at his cottage retreat after repeated urging by Frederick Douglas and other abolitionists. This stamp, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Proclamation, was the first designed by an African American.

Just as the actions of President Abraham Lincoln cannot be fully understood without proper evaluation of his relationships with Black people; science and technology, business and capitalism, Hollywood and popular media, urbanization, and foreign policies will never be fully comprehended without consideration of the Black presence in America. These stamps, for instance, recognize the courage and cultural impact of those who fought for equal rights during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

A realization of the scholarship and philosophy of Dr. Woodson and his fellow historians, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016, built on the foundation of public access to Black history that Dr. Woodson championed.

The Carter G. Woodson National Historic Site preserves the residence where Woodson spent the last 28 years of his life, as well as the original headquarters for the organization he founded, which continues today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

In 2015, the Carter G. Woodson Memorial Park was commemorated in a triangle just north of the Woodson Historic Site. It sits blocks from Howard University (the premiere HBCU—Historically Black Colleges and Universities), the U St. Corridor (once known as "Black Broadway"), the Shaw Neighborhood (a haven for those who escaped slavery that evolved into a hub of Black intellectual and artistic culture in the 20th century), and other sites that reverberate with African American history.

The stamps in this Guide, and millions more, are part of the collections of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum. Its exhibits are built around tangible artifacts of the Nation's postal history, including a full-sized mail car interior, Concord-style stagecoach, airmail biplane, and many others, stretching all the way back to the Colonial era. Visit the museum to experience postal history from Airmail to ZIP Codes, or keep up with its online programs by signing up for the newsletter below.