Relations with Blalock

Throughout Thomas' 34-year partnership with Blalock, the white surgeon's approach to the issue of Thomas's race was complicated and contradictory. On one hand, he defended his choice of Thomas to his superiors at Vanderbilt and to Hopkins colleagues as well, and he insisted that Thomas accompany him in the operating room during the first series of tetralogy operations. On the other hand, there were limits to his tolerance, especially when it came to issues of pay, academic acknowledgment, and social interaction outside of work.

After Blalock's death in 1964 at the age of 65, Thomas stayed at Hopkins for 15 more years. In his role as director of Surgical Research Laboratories, he mentored a number of African American lab technicians as well as Hopkins' first black cardiac resident, Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr., whom Thomas assisted with his groundbreaking work in the use of the Automatic Implantable Defibrillator.

Institutional acknowledgment

In 1968, the surgeons Thomas trainedwho had then become chiefs of surgical departments around the countrycommissioned the painting of his portrait (by Bob Gee, oil on canvas, 1969, The Johns Hopkins Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives) and arranged to have it hung next to Blalock's in the lobby of the Alfred Blalock Clinical Sciences Building. In 1976, Johns Hopkins University presented Thomas with an honorary doctorate. However, because of certain restrictions, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, rather than a medical doctorate. Thomas was also appointed to the faculty of Johns Hopkins Medical School as Instructor of Surgery.

Following his retirement in 1979, Thomas began work on an autobiography, Partners of the Heart: Vivien Thomas and his Work with Alfred Blalock, ISBN 0-8122-1634-2. He died in November 1985, at age 75, and the book was published just days later. Having learned of Thomas on the day of his death, Washingtonian writer Katie McCabe brought his story to public attention for the first time in a 1989 article entitled "Like Something the Lord Made", which became the basis for the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning 2004 HBO film Something the Lord Made.

Legacy

Vivien Thomas' legacy as an educator and scientist continues today through the Vivien Thomas Fund for Diversity, established in 2004 by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for the purpose of increasing minority enrollment at the institution, and the Vivien Thomas Young Investigator Awards, given by the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anaesthesiology beginning in 1996. The Vivien Thomas Scholarship Fund for Medical Science and Research, funded in 2003 by GlaxoSmithKline and administered by the Congressional Black Caucus, provides scholarships to students pursuing graduate education in medicine and science. In 2005, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine honored Vivien Thomas by naming one of its four colleges after him.

On September 9, 1915, Dr. Woodson met in Chicago with Alexander L. Jackson, Executive Secretary of the new Negro YMCA branch. In addition to Woodson and Jackson, three other men were present: George C. Hall, W. B. Hargrove, and J. E. Stamps. At this meeting they formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and appointed Dr. Woodson Executive Director, a post he held until his death.^{[dubious discuss]}

The early years of the Association were difficult times, but it did not deter Woodson because on January 1, 1916, he alone began to publish the Journal of Negro History, a quarterly publication. He distributed the first edition on his own initiative. The publishing of the Journal coincided with the year of the arrival of Marcus Garvey. In 1926, Woodson single-handedly pioneered the celebration of "Negro History Week", the second week in February, which has since been extended to the entire month of February. Because of Woodson's belief in self-reliance and racial respect, it is only natural that the paths of Dr. Woodson and the Hon. Marcus Garvey would cross; their views were very similar. Woodson became a regular columnist for Garvey's weekly Negro World.

Colleagues

Dr. Woodson's political activism placed him at the center of activity and was in contact with many black intellectuals and activists between the 1920s and 1940s. He corresponded with individuals such as W.E.B. DuBois, John E. Bruce, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Hubert H. Harrison, and T. Thomas Fortune among others. Even with the monumental duties connected with the Association, Woodson still found time to write extensive and scholarly works such as The History of the Negro Church (1922), The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), and many other books which continue to have wide readership today.

He was never one to shy away from a controversial subject, & utilized the pages of Negro World to contribute to various fashionable debates. One of these debates was on West Indian-African American relations. Woodson summarized that "the West Indian Negro is free." He felt that West Indian societies had been more successful at properly dedicating the necessary amounts of time & resources needed to realisticly educate and genuinely emancipate people. These opinions were the result of observing and approving of the efforts on the part of the West Indians to inject Black materials into their school curricula.

Woodson was often ostracized by many African-American educators and intellectuals of the time because of his insistence on inviting special attention to one's race. At the time, these educators felt that it was wrong to teach or understand African-American history as in any way separate from a general (usually Eurocentric) view of American history. According to these educators, "Negroes" were simply Americans, darker skinned, but with no history a part from that of any other. Thus Woodson's efforts to get Black culture and history into the curricula of institutions (even Historically Black ones) were often unsuccessful.

Woodson's legacy

Statue of Woodson in Huntington, West Virginia

Woodson remained focused on his work throughout his life, never being deterred by the efforts of others. Many see him as a man of vision and understanding. Although Dr. Woodson was among the ranks of the educated few, he did not feel particularly sentimental to elite educational institutions. The Association which he started in 1915 remains today, with the Journal of African American History still published as a quarterly journal.

Dr. Woodson's other far-reaching activities includes the organization in 1920 of the Associated Publishers, the oldest African American publishing company in the United States, which made possible the publication of books concerning blacks which were not at that time acceptable to many publishers; the establishment of Negro History Week in 1926 (now known as Black History Month); and the initial publication of the Negro History Bulletin, published continuously by the Association since 1937, and originally created for teachers in elementary and high school grades. Woodson also influenced the direction and subsidizing of research in African American history by the Association, and wrote numerous articles, monographs and books on Blacks. The Negro in Our History reached its eleventh edition in 1966, when it had sold more than 90,000 copies.

Dr. Woodson's most cherished ambition, a six-volume Encyclopedia Africana, lay incomplete at the time of his death on April 3, 1950 at the age of 74. He is buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland.

In 1992, the Library of Congress held an exhibition entitled "Moving Back Barriers: The Legacy of Carter G. Woodson". Woodson donated 5,000 items from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to the Library. Dorothy Porter Wesley stated that "Woodson would wrap up his publications, take them to the post office and have dinner at the YMCA". He would teasingly decline her dinner invitations saying, "No, you are trying to marry me off. I am married to my work".

His Washington, D.C. home has been preserved as the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site