"If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."
American historian and educator widely known as the father of Black history. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and launched Negro History Week, which later evolved into Black History Month. His scholarship advanced the formal study of African American history in U.S. education.