By William “Skip” Deegans
Dr. Carter Woodson established Negro History Week in 1926, and it evolved into February’s Black History Month. Carter, the son of former slaves, went from working as a coal miner at the Nuttalburg mine in Fayette County, West Virginia, to graduating from Berea College, University of Chicago, and Harvard University. He became a prominent educator and was honored in 1984 when he was commemorated on a United States postage stamp.
In 1619, white settlers John and Sarah Woodson sailed from Bristol, England, to Jamestown, Virginia. They lived in the community called Flowerdew Hundred and had two sons. Twenty kidnapped Angolans, among the first slaves in America, were brought to Virginia, and six of them were purchased by the Woodsons. When the Carter Woodson stamp was released, one of the descendants of John and Sarah Woodson wondered if he could have a connection to Carter Woodson. Through genealogical research that was later confirmed by DNA matches, the white Woodson and the black Woodsons determined they were related.
The Woodson descendants, black and white, have united and formed a family organization to work on anti-racism efforts. Although there is a current political trend to discourage the study of race in the United States, Dr. Carter Woodson wrote, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”
Sources: NPR, William & Mary College Quarterly, West Virginia State University.
