At church this Sunday our bulletins had a picture and short bio of George Washington Carver on it. All this month, the bulletins are going to feature biographies of various Christian African Americans as a way to celebrate their lives, and to celebrate what Christ did in and through their lives. So often as I continue to learn about African American history, I think to myself, "why haven't I heard of him/her?" Although I have heard of George Washington Carver, I only had a surface knowledge of who he was. I am highlighting him tomorrow to the 2nd through 5th graders in our tutoring program, at our World Changers Station. Here is some of what I have gleaned about his life...
Dr. George Washington Carver was the first African American student accepted at Iowa State University. He was a man of deep faith who believed God had given him abilities - not for himself, not to become rich and famous - but to help people. He developed more than 300 uses for peanuts, over 100 uses for sweet potatoes and taught southern farmers the benefits of crop rotation, composing, fertilization and pest control.
He was born in January about 1864 on the Moses Carver farm near Diamond Grove, Missouri. When he was still just a baby, Confederate slave raiders came and kidnapped him, his brother, and his mother. After the Civil War, his former master was able to ransom him back, but his mother could not be found. Mr. Carver raised George and his brother as part of his own family. As he grew up on the farm, George learned to love plants and nature and earned the nickname "The Plant Doctor."
When George was 12 years old, he was ready to start his formal education, but there were no schools for black children where he lived. He left home and found a town in southern Missouri where there was a school for black children. He went to school and worked as a farm hand to earn his keep. After graduating, he became the first African American student to attend Simpson College in Iowa. He then transferred to Iowa Agricultural College and worked as the school janitor to help pay for classes.
He received his degree in 1894 and two years later received his master's degree. He was the first African American to serve on that school's faculty. It was not long before his fame spread,and Booker T. Washington offered him a teaching job at the Tuskegee Institute. At Tuskegee Carver developed his crop rotation method, which revolutionized southern agriculture. He educated the farmers to alternate the soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as: peanuts, soybeans, peas, sweet potatoes, and pecans. America's economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture during this era making Carver's achievements very significant.
George Washington Carver was about 79 when he died on January 5, 1943. On his tombstone are these words: "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."
I continue to enjoy my ongoing study of African American history. Some books that I have greatly enjoyed reading are...
Before The Mayflower by Lerone Bennett
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley
Malcolm & Martin & America by James Cone
Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr by Clayborne Carson
What are books that you have read and enjoyed? Biographies?
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