Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950) was an educator, historian, philosopher, journalist, and mentor to African American scholars. Known as the “Father of Black History,” Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915, now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Inspired by his belief that it is necessary for a race to have a history or it will be made insignificant, and that the study of African American history would make for a better society, he founded Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson chose February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and this yearly celebration of Black history and culture is now recognized as Black History Month.

Woodson was born in New Canton, Virginia, to James Henry and Anne Eliza (Riddle) Woodson. His parents were formerly enslaved, and Woodson was the fourth of their seven children. In his childhood, he worked as a sharecropper, miner, and other jobs to help support his family. In 1892, he moved with his brother to West Virginia, where he worked in the coal mines. Woodson began his studies at Frederick Douglass High School in Huntington at the age of 20 and graduated in less than two years. In 1903, he earned a bachelor's degree in literature from Berea College in Kentucky.

For the next four years, Woodson served as an education superintendent for the U.S. government in the Philippines. In 1908, he was awarded a second bachelor’s along with a master’s in European history from the University of Chicago. In 1912, he earned his doctorate in history from Harvard University, becoming the second African American, after W.E.B. Du Bois, and the first child of formerly enslaved people in the United States to earn a PhD.

In 1916, he founded The Journal of Negro History, now named The Journal of African American History, a scholarly publication of the ASALH. He served as principal of the Armstrong Manual Training School in Washington, D.C., in 1918, and left a year later to become the dean of the School of Liberal Arts and head of the graduate faculty at Howard University. From 1920 to 1922, he filled the role of dean at West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University).

Woodson formed the Associated Publishers Press in 1921, which he ran out of his home in Washington, D.C. The business served as an outlet for works by him and his fellow Black scholars. In 1937, he created the Negro History Bulletin (now the Black History Bulletin) to help educators teach African American history.

Woodson was active in civil rights as a lifelong member of both the NAACP and the National Urban League. His many published works include The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), A Century of Negro Migration (1918), The Negro in Our History (1922), and the Mis-Education of the Negro (1933). He died on April 3, 1950, in his home in Washington, D.C., and is buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland, Maryland. In 1976, his home was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Initiated by Miss Gertrude McBrown and Mrs. Ruby A. Carter, officers of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the ASALH), the Carter G. Woodson Reference Collection of African American Culture and Life was dedicated at the Queens Central Library in May 1968. Located on the Library’s main floor, it has grown to be a more-than-4,000 volume reference collection covering many aspects of African American culture and life.