The origins of Black History Month can be traced back nearly a hundred years to an unassuming, three-story brick rowhouse in Washington.
In 1922, Carter G. Woodson, known as “the father of Black history,” bought the home at 1538 Ninth Street for $8,000. The home served as the headquarters for the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (which is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, or A.S.A.L.H.). It was where he ran the Associated Publishers, the publishing house focused on African American culture and history at a time when many other publishers wouldn’t accept works on the topic. It’s where The Journal of Negro History and The Negro History Bulletin were based, and it’s where he initiated the first Negro History Week — the precursor to Black History Month — in 1926.
“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,” Dr. Woodson famously wrote.
The site, owned by the National Park Service, is being restored and will likely be open to visitors starting this fall, a spokesperson for the Park Service said.
Though Dr. Woodson was the kind of neighbor who doted on children playing on the street and his stoop, even as other adults told them to behave, 1538 Ninth Street was more about his life’s work than serving as a traditional residence. It became known as Dr. Woodson’s “office home,” as Willie Leanna Miles, who was a managing director of the Associated Publishers, put it in her 1991 article “Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson as I Recall Him, 1943-1950.” The article was published in The Journal of Negro History, which was founded by Dr. Woodson and is still running as The Journal of African American History today.
Over the years, the office home became an important nexus point for the Black history movement, and stepping through its doors was a rite of passage for many Black scholars, writers and activists to seek Dr. Woodson’s mentorship, work there or at least pass through. Mary McLeod Bethune, Lorenzo J. Greene, Lawrence Dunbar Reddick, John Hope Franklin, Langston Hughes and many more all spent time in the home. Even after Dr. Woodson died in his bedroom on the third floor in 1950, A.S.A.L.H. remained based there until 1971.
In 1976, the same year that Negro History Week officially grew into Black History Month, the office home was designated as a National Historic Landmark. As the years went on, it fell into disrepair. In 2005, the National Park Service purchased it along with two neighboring houses for $1.3 million, and is now working on restoring the building and creating a welcome center.
Neighborhood Roots
Born in 1875, Dr. Woodson, who was a descendant of slavery, worked as a coal miner, a teacher and a school principal. Eventually, he became the second African American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard — the first being W.E.B. DuBois.
When Dr. Woodson bought the rowhouse in Washington, he “wanted his organization to have a national stature, and that led him to the nation’s capital,” said Vincent Vaise, one of the planning leads for the Park Service’s restoration project.
Shaw, where the office home is situated, was at the time a predominantly Black neighborhood — “like the Harlem of Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Vaise said. It was home to Howard University, “Black Broadway,” as well as a Black YWCA, where Dr. Woodson would often have lunch. In more recent years, Shaw has been a hot-spot for trendy shops and white millennial residents. The median home sale price in Shaw and Logan Circle, the adjacent neighborhood, for December was nearly $750,000, according to Redfin.