What is the work we’re willing to do? The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience.

Woodson also founded Associated Publishers, which, in addition to publishing the Journal of Negro History, prepared kits for teachers at all educational levels. Woodson took advantage of the contradictions built into de jure segregation to reach the majority of African American school children in their segregated schools.

Mwatabu Okantah was at Kent State when Black History Month was first celebrated. He reflects on the groundwork laid and why it still matters.