Sunrise December 19, 1875, Sunset April 3, 1950.

He was a high school principal in the United States and a school supervisor in the Philippines.

He was a member of the first black professional fraternity.

In 1915 he founded the Journal of Negro History.

He founded the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (ASALH).

He was the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University.

In 1912 he was the second black person to receive a doctorate from Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois was the first.

In a press release in 1926 he announced that the second week of February would be Negro History Week, coinciding with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas.

In 1976 Negro History Week became Black History Month.

Woodson said: “We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.”