Comer Vann Woodward (born 1908), American historian, is one of the leading interpreters of southern history and race relations.

Comer Vann Woodward was born in Vanndale, Arkansas in 1908. He graduated from Emory University in 1930, earned his master's degree at Columbia University in 1932, and received his doctorate at the University of North Carolina in 1937. As part of the requirements for the degree, Woodward chose to try the difficult art of historical biography and wrote his dissertation on Thomas Watson, a member of Georgia's liberal Populist movement who later became an editor known for his virulently anti-African American and anti-Semitic views, and who was almost certainly an instigator of mob violence.

Against Desegregation

Woodward's thesis was published in 1938 as Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel to praise from the critics, who were just as complimentary when the book received further notice in the late 1960s.

In 1940 Woodward was called to testify before a...