Black History Month began as Negro History Week, which was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, an African American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and became a month-long celebration in 1976.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson was born December 19, 1975, to former enslaved Africans. Coming from a large family, Carter could not attend school regularly. Through self-instruction, Woodson mastered the fundamentals of common school subjects by the age of 17. At the age of 20, he entered Douglass High School where he received his diploma in less than 2 years.

He earned his Bachelor of Literature degree in two years from Berea College in Kentucky by taking classes part time. He later attended the University of Chicago when he earned his Masters Degree in He was a member of the first black fraternity Sigma Pi Phi and Omega Psi Phi. He completed his PhD in History at Harvard University in 1912 and was the 2 nd African American to earn a doctorate.

He taught in public schools upon completion of his Doctorate and later joined Howard University as a professor where he served as the Dean of the College and Arts and Sciences. Convinced that the role of his own people in American history and in the history of other cultures was being ignored or misrepresented among scholars, Woodson realized the need for research into the neglected past of African Americans. In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson along with Alexander L. Jackson published The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861.

Dr. Woodson was the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the 1 st scholars to study African-American History. He was also a founder of Journal of Negro History.

George Washington Carver was born into slavery around January As a child he was very sickly and was unable to work in the fields, so he did household chores and gardening instead. He was left with many free hours which he spent wandering in the woods and collecting rocks and flowers. This began his lifelong affair with nature.

He soon became known as the “Plant Doctor” and would help friends and neighbors nurture sick plants. In 1890, he began to study Music and Art at Simpson College. Painting allowed him to combine his two loves which were art and nature.

Carver became the first African-American to enroll at what is today Iowa State University. Upon graduation he became the school’s first African-American faculty member. In 1896, he received a request from Booker T. Washington to become the Director of the Agriculture Department at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School.

Upon his arrival, he found that his school was short on funds. He and his students would search through heaps of trash for items they could use. (This was an early example of recycling.) In 1916, he published the research bulletin, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption.” Dr. Carver and the peanut helped saved the economy of the South during a time when Alabama’s cotton crops were destroyed. Cotton mills were converted to produce peanut oil and livestock could eat peanut plant. Share croppers could feed their families crops that weren’t sold.

George Washington Carver developed 300 derivative products from peanuts among them cheese, milk, coffee, flour, ink, dyes, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils and cosmetics. George Washington Carver was the first African- American to have a national park named after him. George Washington Carver National Monument George Washington Carver National Monument