Norton to Speak at Dr. Carter G. Woodson 139th Birthday Celebration, Tonight
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will offer opening remarks at the 139th birthday commemoration of the legacy of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, tonight, December 19, around 6:30 p.m. at Shiloh Baptist Church (1500 9th Street NW). The event is hosted by the National Park Service (NPS) and its partners, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Dr. Woodson, located on the site of the Woodson home.
"The annual celebration of Dr. Woodson's life is best used to renew our resolve to get his historic home site completed so it can accommodate ASALH and visitors," Norton said. "We should also measure our progress each year until we get it done."
After trying for years to get funding to rehabilitate the Carter G. Woodson National Historic Site, Norton wrote to the President to ask him to include $3.2 million in his fiscal year 2014 budget. After the President included the money, Norton got House and Senate appropriators to include the funding. Norton said this funding will help to finish the rehabilitation of the main home, where Woodson actually lived. Norton also is seeking additional funds in light of the damage done by the 2011 earthquake, which will be used to rehabilitate the two adjacent structures needed to accommodate ASALH and to ensure space for visitors to learn of Woodson's life and work. She expects funding through the NPS's first private-public partnership with a nonprofit familiar with the Shaw neighborhood. Once the project is fully completed, there will be restrooms, an elevator, and interpretive program areas available to visitors to the historic site.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson established Negro History Week in 1926, which has evolved into Black History Month, and is commemorated at the White House and throughout the United States annually. Dr. Woodson, only the second African American to receive a Harvard PhD, is one of the most distinguished American historians and the central figure credited with rescuing the history of African Americans at a time when racist propaganda asserted that Blacks were inferior and had no substantive history beyond slavery.