After completing his Master's at the University of Chicago (in 1908) he attended the elite Sorbonne University in Paris, becoming fluent in French.
The civil rights movement was many years off when Woodson became a member of the Niagara Movement, but it could be said that the Niagara Movement was the precursor to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The group was formed in 1905 by W.E.B. DuBois, among other noted African-American scholars and leaders. They formed the movement to try to bring an end to racial discrimination and used "Niagara" because they hoped to create a "mighty current" for social change in the U.S.
As a regular columnist for The Negro World -- founded by Marcus Garvey -- Woodson was able to publish his viewpoints regarding racial justice and other social issues. He wrote several books; among the best known was The Mis-education of the Negro. An excerpt from that book is very interesting:
"…To handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching. It kills...
It is strange, then, that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up
against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it…"
Not only did Woodson write books and publish articles, he also founded the Negro History Bulletin and the founder of Associated Publishers. One of the publications he founded -- the Journal of Negro History -- is still being published. Dr. Carter Woodson was a brilliant man and his leadership and scholarship has contributed to a great deal of today's literature and legacy concerning African-Americans.
Works Cited
Brown, Korey Bowers. (2008). Carter G. Woodson. Association for the Study of African
American Life and History. Retrieved September 15, 2010, from http://www.asalh.org/woodsonbiosketch.html.
National Park Service. (2009). The Father of African-American History. Retrieved September 15, 2010, from http://www.nps.gov/cawo.
Woodson, Carter Godwin. (2009). The Mis-education of the Negro. ReadaClassic.com.
