The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Green.

Vaught, Seneca

The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Green. By Pero Gaglo Dagbove. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007. xvii, 258 pp. Cloth, $65.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03190-8. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 978-0-252-07435-6.

Dagbovie's dual biography of two giants of the black history movement is an important work. The book belongs among twentieth century intellectual biographies chronicling the intersection of black intellectual history and black historians. Readers of Jacqueline Goggin's, Carter G. Woodson: A Life in Black History and Mis-Education of the Negro will particularly be drawn to this volume because Dagbovie situates his work within a vibrant historiographical context. With regard to sources, Dagbovie culls the rich document holdings on Woodson and Greene at the Library of Congress, where he consulted over 40,000 archival documents in the construction of this narrative.

Woodson, affectionately known as the "father of black history," has received a minimal amount of attention in the biographical literature, considering his significance to the field. According to Woodson's unofficial protege Lorenzo Greene, a popular and well-liked professor of History at Lincoln University, the definitive biography had yet to be written. Dagbovie takes on this task exploring the unique personality of both Woodson and Green in one volume. He argues that the lives of Woodson and Greene should both be examined together considering Woodson's extensive influence on Greene and their collaborative contributions to the early black history movement. This takes issue with Rayford Logan's chief criticism of Woodson, who claimed the patriarch failed to effectively mentor a younger scholar (p.5).

The first part of the book reconsiders the complex personality, publications, and institutions that Carter Woodson contributed to the early black history movement. Readers will be particularly drawn to the peculiar personality of Woodson. Cantankerous, "terse," "truculent," and "sensitive to criticism," are some of the recollections on Woodson's character that Dagbovie gathers from Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rayford Logan and others in the first chapter. Dagbovie's historical sketch of Woodson and his legacy from festschrifts and obituaries eerily confirm the persona of Woodson that his most famous photograph and the book's cover image conveys.

The Early Black History Movement is not only a critical biography as the title suggests, but is also a prescriptive intellectual history for black scholars. Dagbovie is particularly effective in making the case of how Woodson interpreted the role of history as an unfinished story with significant implications for the present. Above all, Woodson desired to engage the masses in historical education which he perceived as a panacea for society's ills. He was not successful immediately, but over time, as he opened the ranks of his Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), edited his writing to be easily accessible to a general audience, and successfully marketed Negro History Week, his goal was eventually realized.

The book raises important questions not only on Woodson's contributions to the field of African American history but also about the trials of black scholars in the ivory tower. For example, chapter three is prefaced with the fallout between Cornel West and Lawrence Summers at Harvard University in October of 2001. Dagbovie argues that Woodson navigated the perils of similar circumstances establishing the framework for the "iconoclastic scholarship" of E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie and Harold Cruse's Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. The works of these scholars followed a Woodsonian tradition in that they challenged the black middle class and conventional wisdom of their era.

Though two males are the focal point of analysis, Dagbovie brings gender concerns to the fore in his discussion of the role of women in the early black history movement. Chapter four questions the validity of W.E.B. Du Bois' characterization of Woodson as a misogynist. Dagbovie argues that while Woodson may have been chauvinistic in some ways, he was more egalitarian in others. He shows how Woodson questioned some disturbing myths of black womanhood such as the 'mammy' and engaged a significant number of women in the work of the ASNLH. The introduction of this chapter at the end of part one seemed a bit forced. Perhaps the arguments of this chapter could have been integrated throughout the book instead, which would have made a more compelling argument for the complexity of Woodson's personality. Although it is an intellectual biography, the work leaves much to be desired about Woodson's personal and family life, details of such would have greatly augmented this volume.

The second part of the book traces the contributions of Lorenzo Johnston Greene from 1899 through 1950. Dagbovie introduces Greene as man deeply shaped by the current of time and his immediate circumstances. Burdened with the responsibility of caring for a large family and driven by the racial ironies of the Progressive era, Greene's approach to history is framed through the Harlem Renaissance and evidenced in his own poetry. Greene is presented as a suffering servant of Woodson, whose humility and appreciation for the "father of Negro History" and the greater cause prevented him severing ties to Woodson over a gamut of issues ranging from jealously, alleged dishonesty and the general behavioral peculiarities of the senior scholar.

Dagbovie establishes that Greene's time with Woodson, particularly during the early 1930s, provided the tempering of his professional, social and political skills. This training was evidenced during his tenure at Lincoln University; Greene became a scholar of the people. He affirmed the responsibility of black academics to create scholarship of the highest order but never shied away from the practical contributions necessary for the improvement of life among the black masses. No work of his evidenced this more clearly than Negro Wage Earner. Like Woodson, Greene saw his historical scholarship as a component of a thrust for social uplift and social change. Unlike Woodson, Greene developed close relationships with his students (p. 168), was generous in donations (p. 170), and sympathetically approached subjects of his research (p. 172).

Dagbovie elicits a great deal of empathy from black academics. In Chapter 8, he outlines Greene's trials at Lincoln University as an underpaid and overly-productive scholar pitted against penny-pinching administrators. In a series of disagreements over salary, Lincoln administrators downplayed Greene's significant scholarly contributions and trivialized his community service, "the biggest blow" according to Dagbovie (p. 194).

The book concludes by comparing the generational gap between Woodson and Greene. Both shared similar ideologies regarding the function of black history but their views sometimes differed (pp.214-125). Woodson was elevated as a national figure but Greene was the epitome of a grassroots public intellectual. He published less than Woodson but was cherished for his constant presence before the masses (p.216). Overall, Woodson's and Greene's concern with the usefulness of history to the black masses is the fundamental theme of the book. It is a message with significant implications for the widening gap between contemporary historians and the hip-hop generation. Dagbovie resurrects a forgotten notion of suffering for a greater good, illustrating how Greene suffered under the tutelage of Woodson out of respect to a cause greater than himself, ironically a lesson he learned from Woodson.

The Early Black History Movement gives deeper insight on iconic figures of the early black history movement while simultaneously serving as a rebuke to disinterested black scholars in the present. The work begs its relevance without being preachy. This book is strongly recommended as a key source on the modern origins of the black history movement and the intentions of its founding luminaries. It would also serve as an excellent ancillary reading in an introductory course on African American history, particularly with texts that emphasize historical interpretation.

Seneca Vaught, Niagara University