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Carter G. Woodson and the Woodson Century of Making Black Lives Matter

Location/County: Charleston, Kanawha
October 18, 2018

On Thursday, October 18, 2018, Burnis R. Morris will present “Carter G. Woodson and the Woodson Century of Making Black Lives Matter” in the Archives and History Library in the Culture Center in Charleston. The program will begin at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Carter G. Woodson, the second African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, served as Academic Dean of West Virginia State Collegiate Institute, present-day West Virginia State University, from 1920 to 1922 and is the Father of Black History Month. He began his education at Douglass High School in Huntington. Morris will discuss the Woodson’s early years, including his time in West Virginia, and also will discuss his newest project, “Woodson Century of Making Black Lives Matter.”

Burnis R. Morris is the Carter G. Woodson Professor and co-founder of The Dr. Carter G. Woodson Lyceum in the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University. He has been a Distinguished John Deaver Drinko Fellow at Marshall, a Carter G. Woodson Fellow at Emory University, and the recipient of a West Virginia Humanities Council Fellowship. Morris also received the Distinguished Artists and Scholars Award for senior faculty at Marshall and a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council to create a summer institute for black history instruction, which he conducted June 6-9, 2017.

Morris received a master’s degree in public administration at the University of Dayton and a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Mississippi, where he became the first black student there to be selected to Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities. Before his employment in the academic world, Morris served as a New York Times intern and as a reporter and editor and in executive positions at several newspapers owned by Cox Enterprises. He is author of three books, most recently Carter G. Woodson: History, the Black Press, and Public Relations (University Press of Mississippi, 2017).

Participants may park behind the Culture Center after 5:00 p.m. on October 18 and enter the building at the back loading dock area. There also is limited handicapped parking available in the new bus turnaround.

For additional information, contact the Archives and History Library at (304) 558-0230.