With February fast approaching, it will once again be Black History Month. Like every year, it is a time to remember the African Americans that have made a positive impact on our country. Attention is usually focused on well-known people, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass. But the spotlight always seems to overlook a Buckingham County man, without whom Black History Month would not exist.

Carter Godwin Woodson was born in New Canton on Dec. 19, 1875. He was the son of two former slaves, James and Eliza Riddle Woodson. Growing up in a sharecropping family, he was busy helping his father in the fields and did not have the opportunity to receive a formal education.

When Woodson was 17, he left Buckingham County and moved to West Virginia where he worked in the coal mines. In 1895, he enrolled in Douglass High School, a segregated school in Huntington. Woodson was able to finish a four-year education in less than two years.

Woodson received a bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky, an integrated school founded by abolitionists. After a four-year teaching stint in the Philippines, he returned to the United States where he enrolled at the University of Chicago, earning two more degrees. But his education was far from over.

In 1912, Woodson received a Ph.D. from Harvard University, making him the second black man at that time in history to earn such an achievement. W.E.B. DuBois was the first. However, Woodson was the first person born to formerly enslaved parents to earn a doctorate. His dissertation was titled “The Disruption of Virginia.” Upon receiving his doctorate, Woodson returned to teaching, eventually becoming the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

After attending a celebration in Chicago for the 50th anniversary of emancipation, Woodson established an organization, which is now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

Woodson created the “Journal of Negro History” in order to give both black and white scholars the opportunity to publish their research on African-American culture. The first issue was published in January 1916. The journal is still printed to this day, though it has since been renamed to the “Journal of African American History.”

In 1921, Woodson founded the Associated Publishers. His publishing company focused on printing the work of African-American writers. The following year, Woodson published his own book, “The Negro in Our History.”

It was in 1926 that Woodson laid the foundation for what would one day become Black History Month. A week-long celebration of African-American history was scheduled for the second week of February, tying into the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It was such a success that it became a yearly event for 50 years. In 1976, it became the month-long event that we now know as Black History Month.

Woodson was a champion for education. In addition to his many published works, he also created African-American history kits for teachers that were filled with curriculum materials. He collected a variety of documents on black culture that are still available at the Library of Congress. During his lifetime, Woodson never married or had children. Instead, he focused all his attention on his research. It is reported that Woodson himself said, “I am married to my work.”

When he passed away in 1950, Woodson left behind his incomplete “Encyclopedia Africana,” considered his most important endeavor. Though his latest work was never finished, Woodson’s countless other contributions to society serve as his legacy. He once wrote, “No man knows what he can do until he tries.”

There are over a dozen schools and places of learning that bear Woodson’s name. His home on 9th Street in Washington, D.C. was declared a National Historic Landmark and is owned by the National Park Service. The street that runs past the site of his boyhood home in New Canton was named in his honor.