Associated Publishers

Associated Publishers is the oldest African American publishing company in the United States. In 1920, Carter Godwin Woodson, a professor at Howard University, organized the publishing company to conduct research, document, and disseminate scholarly writings on the life and culture of African Americans. Woodson recognized the need for the world to gain a greater appreciation for African Americans and wanted to unmask some of the distortions and misrepresentations about the history of African people. His aim was to give the African community an instrument for publishing the best scholarly documents on African and African American history. Since its inception, Associated Publishers has published nationally known and recognized authors who have written numerous articles, monographs, and books that give an accurate account of outstanding contributions African Americans have made to world society.

Woodson was born December 19, 1875 in New Canton, Virginia. He was the son of James Henry and Anne Eliza Riddle Woodson, who had survived the horrors of enslavement. As a young boy, Woodson worked in the coal mines of West Virginia. His formal education began at Douglass High School in Huntington, Virginia. After high school, he attended Berra College in Kentucky, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1908, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Chicago. In 1912, Woodson became the second African American to receive a doctoral degree from Harvard University.

Woodson spoke French fluently and mastered several other languages. He served as a principal and high school teacher in Washington, D.C., a supervisor of schools in the Philippines, and as the dean of Liberal Arts at Howard University and West Virginia Collegiate Institute. On September 9, 1915, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. As a visionary, he saw the need to research and document the many outstanding contributions of African Americans and to pass knowledge and truth to future generations. In 1916, Woodson began publishing the Journal of Negro History. The journal, which is still being published, features writings on African American life and culture. The publication is widely distributed throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Woodson had an unyielding spirit and will, which caused him to quit university teaching and to devote his life to the dissemination of African cultural and historical information. In 1920, he organized the Associated Publishers to serve as a means for African American authors to have their writings published. In 1926, to bring further attention to the beauty, richness, and diversity of African American culture, Woodson created the celebration Negro History Week. In 1976, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History changed the name of the celebration to Black History Month.

One of the principal difficulties Carter Woodson experienced was getting his works published by the major white publishing houses. In response, he used self-determination and ingenuity to create a publishing house and was thus able to fund and distribute the many books and monographs he wrote. In many ways, his work became the model for such contemporary publisher-scholars as Jawanza Kunjufu and Haki Madhubuti. Once Associated Publishers was established, having published 30 books authored by Carter G. Woodson, it was also capable of publishing other authors. Some of Woodson's books include The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), A Century of Negro Migration (1918), The History of the Negro Church (1927), The Rural Negro (1930), and The Negro Professional Man and the Community (1934). Woodson, the renowned historian and scholar recognized as “the father of black history,” died on April 3, 1950. His internationally acclaimed book The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) continues to be a standard by which educational authors of his generation are judged. Associated Publishers published The Negro History Journal and the Negro History Bulletin in addition to books. Noteworthy scholars such as Charles H. Wesley, John Hope Franklin, Samuel Banks, and Edgar Allen Toppin chose to publish some of their best research with the publishing house, and they have thus been major contributors to the rich heritage of Associated Publishers.

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