Along with William D. Hartgrove, George Cleveland Hall, Alexander L. Jackson, and James E. Stamps, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History on September 9, 1915, in Chicago.
The Tehcir Law brought some measures regarding the property of the deportees, and on 13 September 1915, the Ottoman parliament passed the "Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation," stating that all property, including land, livestock, and homes belonging to Armenians, was to be confiscated by the authorities.