Robert Woodson

Robert L. Woodson Sr. (born April 8, 1937) is an American civil rights activist, community development leader, author, and founder and president of the Woodson Center. The Woodson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and demonstration organization that supports neighborhood-based initiatives to revitalize low-income communities.

In February 2020, Woodson launched the Center's 1776 Unites campaign, a black-led alternative to trends in the presentation of American history it considers to be destructive to the wider culture. The campaign brings together conservative and dissenting liberal intellectuals, journalists, and activists to discuss solutions to the problems of racial inequality, poverty, and cultural dissolution.

Woodson was born in Philadelphia. In 1954, he joined the United States Air Force, and earned his G.E.D. He graduated from Cheyney University with a B.S., and from the University of Pennsylvania with a M.S.W.

He was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute from 1977 to 1982. In 1995, he resigned after the publication of Dinesh D'Souza's The End of Racism.

On February 8, 2003, his son, Robert L. Woodson Jr., was killed in a car crash. An award has been named for Woodson Jr. by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he had previously been employed before joining his father at NCNE (now the Woodson Center).Woodson Sr. also has a younger son Jamal, younger daughter Tanya, and older son Ralph.

• 1990 MacArthur Fellows Program MacArthur “genius” award
• 2008 Bradley Prize
• 2008 Presidential Citizens Award
• 2008 Social Entrepreneurship Award from the Manhattan Institute

• 'The Left Forgets What Martin Luther King Stood For', The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2020
• "Ganging Up for Good", The Washington Post, August 21, 2005
• Youth Crime and Urban Policy, A View From the Inner City, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981, ISBN 978-0-8447-2210-8
• On the Road to Economic Freedom: An Agenda for Black Progress, Editor Robert L. Woodson, Regnery Gateway, 1987, ISBN 978-0-89526-578-4
• A Summons to Life, Mediating Structures and the Prevention of Youth Crime, Ballinger Pub. Co., 1981, ISBN 978-0-88410-826-9
• The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Healers are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods, Simon and Schuster, 1998, ISBN 978-0-684-82742-1
• Black perspectives on crime and the criminal justice system: a symposium, editor Robert L. Woodson, G. K. Hall, 1977, ISBN 978-0-8161-8039-4