“By Far the Greatest Stimulus”: Schoolchildren, Negro History Week, and an Inherited Legacy

• In Event: Genealogies of Black Possibility within 20th Century Black Education

Abstract

Overview:
This paper excavates the hidden history of the “greatest stimulus” that fueled an intellectual and empowering awakening amongst Black schoolchildren amid the Jim Crow Era of segregation. In 1926, Carter G. Woodson conceived Negro History Week as an effort to combat the disparaging “instruction to the effect that the Negro has never contributed anything to the progress of making…thoroughly drilled into” schoolchildren (The Journal of Negro History). The national campaign, along with the curriculum, programs, and activities of the Early Black History Movement, significantly shifted the nation's educational landscape through the resulting Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Studies movements that emerged in the decades to follow. From John Lewis to Angela Davis to numerous other leaders, the Negro History Week celebrations during the early 20th century left students with lessons they drew from even during adulthood. This paper attends to the following inquiries: How did the fore-students of this intellectual movement commemorate it? What did they stand to inherit? What ideas and systems did they rupture? What unknown possibilities did they call to be? What lessons did they etch for us in the legacy they became part of?

Historiographical Contributions:
This paper builds on the scholarship of Pero Dagbovie (2007), Jarvis Givens (2021), Alana Murray (2018), and Sarah Bair (2012) through the following contributions: (1) it highlights the centrality of historical memory in the legacy of Negro History Week; (2) forgotten pictures of students paired with their voices invite us to bear witness to the movement in new critical ways; (3) it illuminates new insights into the communicative tools and multi-temporal constructions and interpretations employed by historical actors.

Sources:
This paper draws largely from the Negro History Bulletin (1938-1950) and Black Teachers’ Archives. Paired with personal papers of local schoolteachers (early 20th century) and speeches, memories, and interviews from movement leaders reveal new stories about the significant ways Negro History Week empowered students about their rich history and heritage—and allowed them to cultivate an educational and intellectual practice that inspired generations.

Scholarly Significance:
The growing urgency of the tumultuous upheaval and uncertainties present in our social and political landscape has placed a greater stake on unforgetting the critical hidden restorative and transformative strategies from our pasts. The Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Studies movements of the late 20th century represent significant moments in U.S. history and the cause of freedom, equality, and justice. Autobiographies, speeches, and testimonies from congressman John Lewis, activist Angela Davis, and other movement leaders turn our attention to the significant roles that Negro History Week played in igniting and nurturing an insatiable commitment to what Anna Julia Cooper (1892) referred to as the “moral forces of reason and justice and love.” Yet, these deeply intentional and organized efforts remain understudied. Who were these educators and students? What lessons can they teach us as we construct a new vision for education? Together, these answers offer us wisdom and inspiration for tackling the myriad challenges plaguing the study and interpretation of our collective past.

Author

• Gloria J. Ashaolu, Michigan State University