Carter G. Woodson, Historian, Author, Educator, Journalist (1875)

Born on December 19, 1875, this remarkable man resisted insurmountable odds and became a historian, an author, an educator and a journalist.

For financial reasons, he couldn’t attend school on a regular basis, so he resorted to self-instruction. By age 17, he’d mastered the fundamentals of common school subjects.

In 1895, at age 20, he entered Douglass High School and received his diploma in less than two years.

In 1912, he earned a Ph.D. in History at Harvard University, becoming the second African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University. The first African-American to receive a Harvard University doctorate was W.E.B. DuBois.