1. Black History Month
Woodville Elementary School
Honoring Our Past, Present and Future

2. . "Experience has taught me a great secret I have
spent most of my life trying to share with my
children and anyone who will listen ... History
happens one person at a time." Patricia Stephens Due

3. Introduction
• One hundred years ago a man by the name of Carter G.
Woodson earned his masters degree from the University
of Chicago. He then went on to be the second African
American to earn his doctorate from Harvard University.
While attending a 50th anniversary celebration of the
freedom of slaves, he and four others started the
“Journal of Negro History”. “Negro History Week” was
started in 1937 on the second week of February. In 1976 it
was expanded to include the entire month of February.
Each year it has been given annual themes. This year’s
theme is Black Women in American Culture and History.

4. • Carter G. Woodson chose February because it is the birth
months of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. It
provides a time to share the important contributions of
African Americans to the history of the United States.
• To us Black History means that we can look at the plight
of African Americans and how they overcame injustice to
make significant contributions to our society. We know
that anything is possible with hard work and
perseverance.

5. Today’s Events
• Administrative Welcome
• Welcome and Occasion
• “Honoring Our Past”
• School Sing Along “We Shall Overcome”
• “Honoring Our Present”
• “Honoring Our Future”
• School Sing Along “Lift Every Voice”
• Closing

6. Black Leaders that changed
our History

7. Harriet Tubman
1821-1913
Harriet Tubman dreamed of freedom she had
only heard about. At age 28 protected by the dark
of night and guided by the North Star, she found
freedom! She wanted to help other slaves and
became a member of the Underground Railroad
and led over 300 slaves to freedom!

8. George Washington Carver
1865-1943
George Washington Carver was born a slave in 1865. He became
a famous agricultural chemist and botanist whose lifelong
efforts were to better the lives of poor Southern Black farmers
by finding commercial use of the regions agricultural products
and natural resources, such as: peanut, sweet potato, cowpea,
soybean, and native clays from the soil.

9. Booker T. Washington
1856-1915
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in 1856. After
his family became free at the end of the Civil War, he
graduated from Hampton Institute with honors and
later became the first President of Tuskegee Institute
, which became a major educational establishment
where African-American teachers learned to provide
outstanding education to students.

10. Mary McLeod Bethune
1875-1955
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an
American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school
for African American students in Daytona Beach Florida, that eventually
became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a young girl she had to work in the
fields but she followed her dream to attend college to become a missionary.

11. Madam C.J Walker
1867-1919
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in 1867. She became an
entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products for Black
women. She became an inspiration to many Black women by lecturing
about her wealth and success of her business which empowered other
women into the business world. She became the first African-American
woman millionaire.

12. Benjamin Banneker
1731-1806
Benjamin Banneker was born in 1731. At 21 years old, he built the first
clock in the United States entirely out of wood. The clock kept perfect
time for 40 years. He was also an accomplished astronomers and
correctly predicted the solar eclipse of 1789. Published the “Banneker
Almanac” which caused many to change their attitudes that blacks were
inferior to whites.

13. Garrett Morgan
1877- 1951
Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky. His parents were very poor
and he only had a fifth grade education. As he grew older he moved to
Cleveland, OH and worked as a sewing-machine mechanic. By 1907 he
improved the sewing machine and began his own business. In 1909 he
discovered a solution to straighten hair and patented a breathing device
that allows users to breathe safely when toxic fumes are present. During
World War I his hood was adopted and then adapted for use as a gas
mask. In 1923 he patented a traffic signal.

14. Jackie Robinson
1919-1972
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia to a family of
sharecroppers. In 1947 he became the first African American major
league baseball player. In 1962 he was inducted into the baseball Hall of
Fame.

15. Marian Anderson
1902-1993
Marian Anderson was born in 1902. She became the first
African-American to sing at the New York Metropolitan Opera
House. She was also invited to sing at the inaugurations of
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.

16. Langston Hughes
1902-1967
Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He
became one of the most important African-American writers in
this nation’s history. Through his writing he hoped to bring
about positive changes in the condition and treatments of blacks
in America.

17. Charles Drew
1904-1950
Charles Drew was born in 1904. He was an African-American
physician who developed ways to process and store blood plasma in
blood banks. The director of blood plasma programs of the USA and
Great Britain in WWII, he resigned after a ruling that Black blood
should be segregated.

18. Jessie Owens
1913-1980
Born in Danville, Alabama. In May 1935, he broke 3 world
records in track and field. One year later he won 4 Olympic
Gold Medals in Berlin, Germany!

19. Thurgood Marshall
1908-1993
Thurgood Marshall was born in 1908 and became the first
African-American Supreme Court Justice in 1967. Thurgood
was determined to overturn the “Jim Crow” laws which
segregated Black Americans. In 1954 he successfully
challenged school segregation in Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas
Board of Education.

20. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929-1968
Martin Luther King, Jr . was born in 1929. After graduating from
college, Dr. King moved to Montgomery, Alabama to become a
Pastor. He was a member of the Montgomery Improvement
Association and the founder of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference. He believed in and modeled peaceful
changes to the segregation laws. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in
1964.

21. History of Woodville Elementary
• Timeline
Hickory Grove The White Woodville School Woodville Woodville Leon County
Academy Church School Elementary Desegregates Schools
School Desegregation
1856 1899 1907 1961 1966 1967
Woodville first Grades first It cost $3,175 to Woodville 4 African- Freedom of
opens its doors through eight build and was 2 becomes an American Choice plan
stories elementary students begin
school attending

22. Woodville School
In 1940 Woodville School was a one room, one teacher school with 40
students. Mrs. Suwannee Lewis taught grades one through eight.

24. Local Black Leaders that
changed our History

25. Dorothy Inman
Johnson
Born in Birmingham, AL Ms. Johnson loved playing school with
her friends. A teacher for nearly twenty years, Ms. Johnson
taught at Woodville Elementary School and went on to become
the first African-American female mayor of Tallahassee. She is
currently writing a book entitled “Poverty in America: A View
from Down Here”.

26. Rev. Charles Kenzie
Steele
Rev. Steele was elected president of the Inter-Civic Council. The
job of the council was to organize the Tallahassee bus boycott. He
is quoted as saying he would rather “walk in dignity than ride in
humiliation”. A car-pool was formed and eventually fined
$11,000 which was paid in full by the efforts of Rev. Steele’s fund
raising. The Tallahassee bus service was integrated thanks to the
efforts of Rev. Steele and other brave Tallahassee residents like
him.

27. Patricia Stephens Due
Ms. Due once stated the “ordinary people can do extraordinary
things” proved just that. At the age of 13, she tried to use the
“whites only” window at the Dairy Queen. She later pushed her 2
daughters in a stroller while she campaigned for the rights of the
poor. She spent her honeymoon riding a bus to hear Dr. King
speak in Washington. While there she heard his famous “I Have
a Dream Speech”. She and 10 others were arrested for eating at
the “whites only” lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Tallahassee.
She was arrested and while in jail received encouraging notes
from Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.

28. Tallahassee Bus Boycott

29. Civil Rights Demonstration at
the Corner of Adams and
Jefferson Street

30. Scene from NAACP March

31. Rev. C.K. Steele Removing the Burnt
Cross after the Bus Boycott

32. Resources
• About.com Black History Month
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/p/blackhistorymonth.htm
• Biography: Carter G. Woodson http://www.biography.com/people/carter-g-
woodson-9536515
• The Famuan: Dorothy Inman Johnson
http://www.thefamuanonline.com/news/dorothy-inman-johnson-a-
trailblazer-for-black-women-in-tallahassee-1.2526038
• Florida Memory: Tallahassee Civil Rights March
http://www.floridamemory.com/solr-
search/results/?q=*:*%20AND%20collection%3A%22Florida%20Photographic
%20Collection%22+AND+49_s%3A%22Civil%20rights%20leaders%22&search
box=1&query=Civil%20rights%20leaders&year=&gallery=0
• NY Times: Patricia Stephens Due
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/patricia-stephens-due-civil-rights-
leader-dies-at-72.html
• Praise News: Reverend Charles Kenzie Steele
http://www.praisenews.faithweb.com/pastors/revsteele.html