Born in 1875 in Buckingham County to parents who were formerly enslaved, Woodson went on to earn a Ph.D. in History at Harvard University in 1912, only the second African-American to receive a Harvard doctorate, his predecessor being the eminent scholar, W.E.B. DuBois. Woodson was instrumental in bringing professional recognition to the study of African-American history during a period when most historians held the opinion that African Americans were a people without history. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 (later to be re-named the Association for the Study of African American Life and History) and its scholarly journal, The Journal of Negro History (now the Journal of African-American History), in 1916. Under his leadership, Negro History Week (now Black History Month) was inaugurated in the United States as an annual celebration of African-American achievement.
