Robert Leon Woodson Sr.[1] (born April 8, 1937) is an American civil rights activist, community development leader, author, and founder and president of the Woodson Center, a non-profit research and demonstration organization that supports neighborhood-based initiatives to revitalize low-income communities.[2]
In February 2020, Woodson launched the center's 1776 Unites campaign to counter The 1619 Project.
In 1977 Woodson married Ellen Hylton, and together they have raised four children: Robert Woodson Jr., Jamal Woodson, Tanya Woodson-Monestel, and Ralph Woodson.[3] On February 8, 2003, his son, Robert L. Woodson Jr., was killed in an automobile accident.[4] An award has been named for Woodson Jr. by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he had previously been employed.[5]
While completing his graduate work, Woodson became actively involved in the civil rights movement, directing and coordinating community development programs for a number of local and national organizations, including the NAACP.[3]
Unitarian Services Committee, social worker, Boston, 1968–1971[edit]
After resigning from the NAACP, Woodson moved to Boston, where he spent three years as a social worker with the Unitarian Services Committee.[3]
National Urban League, Administration of Justice Division, director, New York City, 1971–1973[edit]
As a director of the National Urban League, Woodson began to develop a strategy to reduce crime by strengthening community institutions that were closest to the problems of high-crime areas.[3][6]
Woodson continued to develop the idea of neighborhood empowerment during his time as director of the American Enterprise Institute's Neighborhood Revitalization Project in Washington, DC. He then became an adjunct fellow providing technical support and advice to community groups.[3]
Woodson's strategy of neighborhood empowerment is to seek solutions to the problems of low-income communities among what he calls the social entrepreneurs that are indigenous to these communities. Rather than a poverty program directed by some government agency, Woodson's program seeks out families in these troubled neighborhoods that have prospered and persevered to learn from their success.[7]
Opposition to Law Enforcement Assistance Administration[edit]
In 1973 Vernon Jordan, head of the Urban League, and Representative John Conyers, chair of the U.S. House subcommittee on crime in the Judiciary Committee, supported Woodson's opposition to vesting more power to Justice agencies as a solution to crime, and a better solution was focusing on neighborhood empowerment.[6]
In 1981 Woodson founded the CNE (now the Woodson Center) to promote "self-help" solutions in low income neighborhoods by promoting and supporting indigenous leaders in those neighborhoods.[7][8]
The CNE created the Violence-Free Zones program to reduce the level of violence in schools and help at-risk youth escape the life of violence and crime.[9][10]
On November 15, 2016, the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise was rebranded as the Woodson Center as a tribute to Founder and President, Robert Woodson Sr.[2]
