Evening star., 1937-10-31
Nv CARTER G. WOODSON,


Founder and Directorsof the Association for
the Study of Negro Life and History.
The Association for the Study of
Negro Life and History convenes here
today in its twenty-second annual
session. The conference will continue
through Wednesday.
A committee of 100 citizens in the
District of Columbia sponsoring the
conference has been organized with
various subdivisions to carry out in
detail the thorough preparation for the
assembly of investigators and teachers
in the schools and colleges of the
country where the study of the Negro
has been made an objective. DR.. Gar
net c. Wilkinson, first assistant super
intendent of schools, is the chairman;
Miss Susie R. Quander, a member of
the faculty of the Garnet-Patterson
High School, is the secretary of this
committee. The sessions will be held
In the auditorium of the Garnet
Patterson High School, Vermont ave-
nue and v street NV.
The announcement of the annual
meeting of a learned society to docu-
ment the history of the Negro comes
to some of the American public as a
surprise. A prominent citizen, well
informed on other affairs, inquired as
to what an undertaking of this sort
can accomplish when, as he had been
thinking, the Negro came out of
slavery with nothing worthwhile be-
hind him and looking forward to the
future that he may make history.
The staff of this organization and CO.
workers similarly interested through
out the country, however, have shown
during % years of painStaking re-
search that the Negro race, like any
other branch of the human family,
has been accomplishing things from
time immemorial. They founded king
doms and empires in Africa which
sntedated many of those in Europe
and in Asia. and at these centers Of
their ancient culture they made dis
tinct contributions to philosophy,
science, literature and art.
Not All Were Slaves.
A young white man, a graduate of
the University of Maryland, who
came into the office of the director to
write bond for the secretary-treas-
urer of the organization, was surprised
to know that none of its objectives has
been to study the Negroes free before
the Civil War. He had the impression
that all Negroes in America were held
as slaves until that conflict ended with
the general emancipation. About
half million, one-seventh of the
American Negroes. had already be-
come free. Many of these had at
tanned the status of efficient mechanics
and artisans and a. few had gone into
the professions.
The association functions as an
agency disseminating this information
among the white people. They, too,
need to know the Negro. Race hate
has developed because the better ele-
ment of Negroes are not known to the
whites. The public knows all about
the crimes committed by Negroes, but
practically nothing about those who
are trying to help themselves. This
society aims especially to publish those
worthwhile achievements through the
magazines and books which are widely
circulated
The purpose of this association is to
penetrate that background in order
to inspire the descendants of those
Negroes who we're carried away cap
tive and enslaved in lands beyond
their shores as was the case with
those who were brought here to the
United States to toll two and one-half
centuries in bondage. The history of
the Negro does not begin on the plan
tations and in the mines of America
Certain portions of all races have at
times beerr enslaved. Slavery was the
normal condition of people in the
ancient world. Only one-third or
one-fourth of the people at that time
were actually free.
Have Impressed World.
With these objectives, the writer
founded the Association for the Study
of Negro Life and History in Chicago
September 9, 1915. Since that time
the researches and publications of this
learned society have so impressed the
world as to win the support of the
outstanding organizations of both
races in the United States, and the
work is not without a hearing in most
of the learned circles of Europe and
Africa. Some of its most distinguished
supporters have been the late Julius
Rosenwald, the late Paul Warburg, the
late DR.. j. Franklin Jameson, Harold
H. Swift and DR.. James r. Angel, the
retiring president of Yale.
The association has had a staff of
investigators itself, and it works in CO.
operation with others similarly con-
cerned in various parts of the country.
Briefly told, the association has:
/. Directed the attention of investi-
gators to mis- neglected field.
2. Extended the circulation of the
Journal of Negro History into South
America. Europe, Asia and Africa.
3. Published % volumes of articles
and documents giving facts which are
generally unknown.
4. Produced 25 monographs on Negro
life and history.
5. Organized and stimulated the
studies of local clubs and classes. which