Becoming a Community Affair: A&T and the History of Black History Month
Black History has a long and deep legacy at A&T and unknown to many Aggies until recent years, our university directly inspired the creation of “Negro History Week, or what is now called Black History Month.
A&T has a full heritage of being a proud HBCU land grant college and efforts to teach the history of Black Americans are rooted from our earliest faculty. Mrs. Susie B. Dudley (c.1852-1933) the matriarch of theatre arts at A&T composed plays on Black History and uplift like “The Evolution of the Negro” (1902) “The Negro’s Quota To His Commonwealth” (1905) that were presented at “Industrial Night” during commencement. President James B. Dudley (1859-1925) was active in many campaigns to teach and monumentalize Black History and the services of Black veterans.
Beginning in 1907, the A&M College began including a celebration of the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in their college bulletin academic calendars, or the week of February 12. It was always listed as a “Special programme [sic] by [the] English Department”. Celebrations of Lincoln and Douglas were not uncommon at Black schools, colleges, and community affairs during this time.
By 1915 “Negro History” became an elective class at the A&T Trade School. The instructor was Dr. Dock James Jordan (1866-1943). A historian and civil rights activist, Jordan taught history at both A&T and NC Central for nearly a decade and wrote his famous 1917 letter against Woodrow Wilson’s segregationist policies during that time. The text for his courses was written by historian Benjamin Brawley (1882-1939).
Snippet from New York Age March 19, 1921, Describing “Negro Week” at A&T during the week February 13th.
A tremendous change began in 1921. This year’s Douglass and Lincoln’s birthday were now called “Negro Week”. These celebrations took place for “three consecutive nights”. The Friday night speaker was Benjamin Brawley himself.
1921-1922 A&T College Bulletin. Note the Special Days listing of Douglas’ Birthday and Negro History Week.
The following year the celebration was listed as “Douglas’ Birthday and Negro History Week” in the 1921-1922 A&T College Bulletins. The 1921 and 1922 events are believed to be the earliest known celebration anywhere called “Negro History Week” that coincides with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, the 3 key ingredients of why what we now call Black History Month was birthed in February.
The 1922 “Negro Week” celebration was held at A&T College with oratorical contests, music, and guests from across NC. By 1923 the Black press was calling “Negro Week” or “Negro History Week” an “annual feature of the college”. For the 1924 Negro Week at A. and T. College” among many features the legendary drama professor Richard B. Harrison gave a Thursday night recital.
Topping all the previous weeks was 1925. It was this year on February 13 that Dr. Carter G. Woodson the “Father of Black History” and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now ASALH thea Association for the Study of African American Life and History) was the guest speaker. Newspaper coverage detailed that the tradition of Negro History Week at A&T College was explained to Dr. Woodson by President James B. Dudley who introduced him to the audience. Dudley also is said to have expressed a desire for these events to become a “community affair instead of a college affair” the following year.
News of Carter G. Woodson as the speaker at the 1925 Negro History Week at A&T. From Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 21, 1925.
Dr. Dudley was expected to attend a regional Association for the Study of Negro Life conference in Durham that April, but he fell ill and died at this home in Greensboro. In the Summer of 1925, Woodson was a guest lecturer at the A&T Summer School. Then in September of 1925 the first advertisements for a National Negro History Week to coincide with the birthdays of Lincoln and Douglass for 1926 began appearing in the national Black press. When the first National Black History Week took place, A&T was among the first HBCUs to celebrate. Dr. Woodson would return to A&T again in the late 1920s and as our 1932 spring commencement speaker.
Carter G. Woodson (left behind woman in white dress) next to President F. D. Bluford in the procession for the Spring 1932 Commencement.
This history was well known to A&T students well into the 1930s, as seen by Negro History Week articles in the A&T Registers. In 1934 and 1935 the phrase “In fact, it was at A. and T. that the movement was inaugurated” was used. A&T as the inspiration for Negro History week was publicly acknowledged in an address at Barber-Scotia College by Dean Warmoth T. Gibbs in the 1950s.
By the time of the 60th annual celebration in 1986 only a handful of Aggie historians knew the story, among them were President Emeritus Gibbs and community activist and historian Lewis C. Brandon ‘61. The history was rediscovered in archives around 2018, and with Dr. Gibbs and Mr. Brandon’s accounts more evidence was uncovered in special collections in 2021.
From what is known today it is believed that a conversation or partnership was developed between President James B. Dudley and Dr. Carter G. Woodson in February 1925. It was also possible that Dudley was supposed to present on the idea for broader Negro History Week events at the spring ASNLH conference that was held in Durham, NC, before illness struck him down.
When Dr. Woodson returned to A&T that summer to teach at the Summer School, there may have been a spark or reminder of the Negro History Week events by faculty and students. Dr. Woodson knew that the February model would be effective and began plans to make it work far beyond anything James B. Dudley may have imagined.
Based on the text of the A&T Registers, and Dr. Woodson’s repeated visits to the North Carolina and Aggieland, it was not his intention that A&T’s role in the development of Negro History Week be forgotten.
After a century of celebrating Black History Month, Aggies can be proud of this enduring contribution to education, civil rights, and American and international scholarship. As it was said by an uncredited reporter for the New York Age of the 1921 events “This celebration will always be stamped indelibly on the minds of the student body of A. and T. College and the Negro Citizens of Greensboro who witnessed it, and the records of the achievement of the race will inspire our young men to grander and nobler accomplishments.”
A mystery remains of who created Negro History Week at A&T? Was it President Dudley? Could it have been an outgrowth of Susie B. Dudley’s Black History plays? Could it have been Prof. Dock James Jordan or Benjamin Brawley? Since it was a project of the English Department, could it have been F. D. Bluford who was Dean of the Academic Department at the time? Most likely it was a combination of minds. One press statement credited the “president and the faculty”.
The University Archives and Special Collections need more documentation about faculty and student experiences at A&T from our first 40 years to help solve these and other mysteries. Please check your attic or your great grandparents’ scrapbooks.
If you have more information about this story, or would like to share your memories about Black History Month celebrations at A&T please contact the University Archives and Special Collections at libraryarchives@ncat.edu. A special thanks goes to Mr. Lewis Brandon ‘61 and Dr. Jelani Favors Ph.D. A&T ‘07. Honor also goes the memories to Warmoth T. Gibbs, Thelma Pearsall, Theophilus McKinney, Dr. Frenise Logan, Albert Spurrill, and many more among the generations of legacy faculty and librarians who taught and preserved Black History in our classrooms and special collections.
By: James R. Stewart Jr ’08, Archives and Special Collections Librarian
