February is Black History
Month-Honor Historian Carter G. Woodson
By Sam Eaton
Normally, unlike guys
like Sam Lowell and Frank Jackman that write here about politics and history, I
am not interested in the fate of historians dead or alive. They provide
valuable material, mostly, but I just am not attuned to history enough to go
crazy over any particular one, or any particular morsel they have to serve up.
Not so the man we are honoring here Carter G. Woodson (and on Google’s home
page doodle as well which is where I got my prompt from). The reason I am more
than happy to make an exception is that the good Doctor did yeoman’s work, no
more than that, to bring us young white kids who were involved in the black
civil rights movement in the early 1960s plenty of information about the history
of early black struggles and personalities. Started journals and programs to study
the subject. Stuff that we were clueless about despite our avidity to help in
the black liberation struggle. Stuff that was not taught in any high school
course, hell, any college courses until well after Black/Afro-American study
programs were established. So, yes, hats off to the good Doctor.
