George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life

Funding for George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life comes to you through: ♪♪ Wherever your operation takes you or whoever you share it with, we'll be where we've been all along, with you from the start. ♪♪ The Wallace Genetics Foundation. ♪♪ The Alliant Energy Foundation. ♪♪ And for the Des Moines Community Playhouse. ♪♪ He was a man of many talents. He was a broad-based individual with a love for

life

. He was more than just a scientist: he was an artist, an educator and a humanitarian. And he did a lot to help others. Scientist, teacher, leader, man of faith. He was a conservationist.

He was very creative and had a childlike wonder about

life

. He loved humanity at the beginning. He loved white people and black people. George Washington Carver was a man of hope. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Who was George Washington Carver? George Washington Carver's rise from slavery to scientific achievement has inspired people around the world. Even today, children study Carver's history and lists of notable African Americans always contain his name. However, time has dulled the shine of his reputation, reducing him to the man who made something out of peanuts. ♪♪ George Washington Carver was a complex man who had many gifts. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed him the "Black Leonardo." Dana Chandler: George Washington Carver was an artist.

He was a scientist. He was a geologist. He was a poet. He was a Bible scholar. That's a renaissance man. Luther Williams: George Washington Carver was a creative genius who was able to invoke personal and shared identities to protect him from the excesses of slavery and discrimination and who took those negative experiences and translated them into the unity of humanity that is locally extraordinary , nationally and internationally. After Carver's death in 1943, the nation rushed to commemorate him. Congress made his birthplace a national monument. Postage stamps and coins were issued with his image. And warships and dozens of public buildings were named in his honor.

Sceiva Holland: He was a man of concern, a man of vision, a man who really wanted to make a difference and the difference was not necessarily for him, but for other people. Born into slavery in the final months of the Civil War, George Washington Carver rose to become one of the most well-known and respected African Americans in the world. Henry Ford called him "the world's greatest living scientist." Presidents and poor black farmers alike praised him. Mahatma Gandhi's assistant asked him for advice on creating a vegetarian diet for the Indian activist. Groups as different as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Daughters of the Confederacy honored him.

Gary Kremer: He is a useful hero to Americans and I think that does a disservice to Carver. I think he's important for many reasons besides that. In reality, Carver was a complicated man. Thousands of people around the world had a warm affection for him and considered him a personal friend. However, Carver never married, lived alone in a dormitory for most of his adult life, rarely socialized, and worked alone in his laboratory. He was known for his humility and simplicity; he wore a tattered suit adorned with a single flower on the lapel. He dedicated his life to helping African American farmers suffering from the oppression of racism, poverty and ignorance.

Peter Burchard: I used to quote this little poem called It is service that measures success. And the bottom line is that it's not the price of the clothes you're wearing or the number of servants who come to your call, it's the service that measures success. He said things simply and beautifully and I think one thing that makes him so relevant is that he is accessible. George Washington Carver's long journey to global fame began in dark circumstances. He was born around 1864 on an isolated Missouri farm owned by Moses Carver. Both of his parents were slaves. His father was crushed under the wheels of a wooden cart around the time of George's birth.

Before George was one year old, he and his mother Mary were kidnapped by lawless raiders and taken to Arkansas, where they were able to be resold. Moses Carver sent a Union Army scout to find and return them. The man somehow found George desperately ill with whooping cough, but he never saw Mary again. Moses and Susan Carver took George and his older half-brother, Jim, into their home and raised them as their own. Orphaned, sickly, and recently freed from slavery, George's prospects were dead. However, since he was little he felt attracted to nature, considered something special. He had an unusual talent in almost everything he tried to do and had a great curiosity to learn everything he could.

Lana Henry: He talked about the time he would spend in nature and what he did was just enjoy the solace, the tranquility and talking to the Creator. And she then she took it throughout his life. Throughout her life she had this love of nature, which she then transitioned into plant life and explained how she could take plants and break them down chemically and create other products, all with the benefit of helping people. Peter Burchard: He had what you might call visions. He said: "When I was a very small child exploring the almost virgin woods of the old Carver home, I had the impression that someone had been there before me.

Things were so orderly, so clean, so harmoniously beautiful, some years later. In those same woods I understood the meaning of this youthful impression because I was practically overcome by the sensation of a great presence, not only was there someone there, but someone was there, I knew even then that it was the great spirit of the universe. Never since then I have been without this awareness that God speaks to me through plants, rocks and all other aspects of his creation." Curtis Gregory: Being here, being in the wooded area when he had free time, where he was learning how flowers would grow, how trees would grow, and he was very curious and exploring and asking a lot of questions, as I understand it.

And he became known as the plant doctor when he was here in the forest. And I really think that influenced him quite a bit. As George was often sick and frail, his brother Jim helped Moses on the farm. George helped Susan with household chores, where he learned to sew, cook, wash clothes, and do embroidery. Moses' influence was seen in George's relentless work ethic, his love of music, and his disdain for waste. Gary Kremer: The paradox is that this young African-American man grew up in a home dominated by two quite elderly white people and for a time he had his brother Jim with him.

But beyond his brother Jim, there is no evidence that Carver had much contact with other African Americans and to me that is a very important reality of his life. So he is born in a state that is in great conflict, the conflict ends but the animosities do not, and he is born in a state that is segregated when it comes to education. African Americans and whites went to separate schools. And I think that would have a tremendous effect on Carver. There were multiple instances in Carver's life in which he variously referred to himself as the orphan child of a despised race.

And that has always been a very revealing phrase for me. I think in that sense Carver had a lot of tremendous insecurities. Why wouldn't he do it? The Carvers did their best to provide George with some education. But when he was around 12 years old, his curiosity could no longer be contained. There was a school for blacks in Neosho, a town eight miles away. George set out alone and on foot to pursue an education. ♪♪ Luther Williams: He represents powerful psychological resilience. What motivates a young person of 10, 12 years old to leave where they live and walk eight miles to a school?

It is not only the place where he originated his education, it is the place that actually represents the beginning of what I call his path to freedom and that is the anchor. That is the beginning of the incredible story that bears the name Carver. ♪♪ When George arrived in Neosho, Andrew and Mariah Watkins, a childless black couple, agreed to take him in as long as he was willing to help with household chores. Although George lived with the Watkins for only a short period of time, Mariah seemed to have made a powerful impression on him. She was a midwife in the community and had a great knowledge of plants and their medicinal powers, which attracted George and inspired his lifelong conviction that diseases could be cured through the proper use of plants and products extracted from them. they.

Mariah's strong faith also influenced George and she was the first person he met who urged him to use her genius to serve his people. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Luther Williams: It's what I call deep-wrought spirituality, which doesn't mean the same thing as religion, and what I'm arguing is that deep-wrought spirituality requires that you use it, be aware of it, be in Contact him in all interactions. And I think one of the reasons he was such an extraordinary humanitarian is that it follows from what I just talked about. ♪♪ George loved people and dedicated his life to improving the lot of humanity.

He once wrote: "I love humanity and all humanity that is striving to be something and someone. I am not interested in complexion, hair texture, nationality, etc. I like all the work of God. So, what do you think?" Let us continue to pray and love each other more and more, if possible, as time goes by. William Carver Lennard: That's what Jesus Christ did, he came to serve others. And that's what I feel Carver did. I think the influence and the impact, the influence of his life, like that of Christ, influenced many other people in a very positive way. ♪♪ Gary Kremer: Dreams were real to him, he perceived them as God's way of speaking to him and in that sense I think he thought he was special, that he was imbued with qualities that had been given to him by God.

And I think that was a source of great strength for him and a source of confidence. Simon Estes: I have always said that God gives everyone a talent and God gave George Washington Carver a talent for science without compromising faith, religion or God. And I think that's what motivated him. He was born with this mission, even when he was a little boy, he probably didn't know when he was five years old that he was going to be a great scientist and a great humanitarian, but God instilled it in him at birth. . George's teacher at Neosho was unable to provide him with the level of education he desired.

So when a couple stopped at the Watkins house on the way to Fort Scott, Kansas, he hitchhiked. He made friends, many of them white, but he was never far from the shadow of racism. At Fort Scott, he witnessed the lynching of a black man and immediately left town. Later, he was admitted to Highland College in Kansas, but officials rejected him when they saw the color of his skin. Lana Henry: That kind of thing could put you in a cave, you could just back off and say, "I can't face this." But he didn't, he just kept moving forward and facing the harsh realities ahead.

And it's very interesting because towards the end of his life, when he was hired to be a spokesperson for interracial cooperation and what impact he had on so many people who impacted others and impacted others and all those experiences that he had, the encounters . and the racial barriers, the struggles, the prejudices and yet keeping one foot in front of the other. Curtis Gregory: One thing I can appreciate about Carver is that, as an African-American, all the things that Carver went through, leaving here and experiencing hate, and he did experience hate, Carver was never bitter. And that's something I can definitely appreciate.

Even in our current society, some things Carver went through are still very relevant today as well, and I sometimes look at Carver's life story as an example of how I too can be a better person. Sceiva Holland: He didn't take the tragedies of life, the disappointments of life, to define him. And so many things happened to him, so many things that you wonder: how the hell did he ever want to do anything, much less do anything? Why would he want to help someone else if he wasn't getting some of the things he thought he should have? ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hearing that Iowa might have a university that would accept him, George went there in 1888 and landed in the town of Winterset, where he found work in a hotel.

While visiting a local church there, he met a white couple named John and Helen Milholland. They treated him like family. Years later he would say: "Mr. and Mrs. Milholland have been my warmest and most helpful friends." ♪♪ Paxton Williams: They didn't know that he was going to grow up to be this famous scientist or this famous educator. They simply saw that he was a person of value. They saw a person who had potential. And they took the time to learn about him as an individual and to see what they could do to foster that potential. ♪♪ Paxton Williams: Although we can't all be like Carver, because I think he had a real genius, we could all be like the kind of people who encouraged him and inspired him in his own way, ordinary people who do it all the days. what they could learn about a neighbor.

Helen Milholland encouraged George to apply to Simpson College, a small Methodist school 20 miles away in Indianola, Iowa. He was accepted and enrolled on 9September 1890. Dr. Jay Simmons: Carver came here and presented his credentials and the president, President Holms at the time, said "well, of course, you're welcome," and admitted him and so his career began. at Simpson College. Years later, George acknowledged the warmth of his reception at Simpson College and simply said, "I was made to believe he was a real human being." Paxton Williams: He really found a home there. There is a well-known story of how several of his classmates invited him to go to concerts and he couldn't go because he didn't have money.

And soon after this became known, he would return home and find tickets to the concert slipped under his door. ♪♪ It was not botany or chemistry that George longed to study at Simpson. He wanted to be an artist, a painter and capture the beauty of nature. So he asked Etta Budd, the university's art professor, for admission to his class. And she gave him the opportunity. Dr. Jay Simmons: It's kind of interesting because she was new to Simpson College the same year he arrived and she was a member of the first-year art faculty and he had been drawing and he wanted to pursue his art and he met with her and she.

In fact, she was reluctant to let him into her art studio because she did not present him with a portfolio or any of the usual reviews that would give him an indication of her talent. However, he persisted. He was an awesome guy and he flourished. And she encouraged him, and as he grew as an artist, she helped him become better and more skilled. But she was concerned about whether he could really make a living doing that and she realized that he had a great interest in agriculture, agronomy and botany and so she encouraged him to go to Iowa State and enter the agricultural program, Of course he did. ♪♪ In 1891, George moved to the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, now Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, where Etta Budd's father taught horticulture.

He remained at Iowa State for five years as its first African-American student, earning a master's degree and becoming the first African-American faculty member. Luther Williams: I think it was a powerful validation of his worth, of his worth as seen by others. My opinion is that at that time Carver was in charge of her own career and his life. At first, George's life at his new school was not easy. Paxton Williams: They didn't give him a room near the other students. He was not allowed to eat with the other students. His teacher Pammel gave him one of his laboratories to live in.

And a white lady from Indianola, a friend named Mrs. Sophia Liston, came to visit Carver in Ames. She decided that she was going to walk with Carver all over the city so that people could see that he was accepted and known in society. And she insisted that she would eat where he ate. And so, while before he had to eat with the day laborers or workers, the powers that be decided that he could eat with the other students. I am very proud of the fact that Carver decided to hold out when he first came to Ames.

But I'm also proud of the fact that people who maybe weren't as welcoming to him when he got there, they were able to learn, they were able to grow, they were able to change. Eventually, he was embraced by white students and teachers, who saw in him a spark of genius. ♪♪ Dr. Wendy Wintersteen: I think that legacy is a message to all of us today and in the future about how important it is to value diversity, to provide for all individuals who choose to work hard, there is no doubt that George Washington Carver worked hard every day, an opportunity to excel and reach your full potential.

At Ames, George became friends with James Wilson, director of the agricultural school, who would serve as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for sixteen years. His dairy professor, Henry C. Wallace, would serve in the same position in the 1920s. And Wallace's son, Henry A. Wallace, who frequently accompanied George on his nature walks, would serve as Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Dr. Wendy Wintersteen: On Sundays, George Washington Carver would be invited to dinner at the Wallace home, and then George Washington Carver and Henry A. Wallace would go for a walk and study nature, look at plants, talk about what George Washington Carver He was studying at Iowa State University.

And, interestingly, George Washington Carver's college thesis was on plant hybridization. And here he was talking to Henry A. Wallace, who had founded Pioneer Hybrid based on plant hybridization. ♪♪ George planned to pursue a doctorate at Iowa State, and the school very much wanted to keep him on its faculty for what could have been a happy and distinguished academic life. Then, in 1896, a letter arrived that would change everything. "I can't offer you money, position or fame," he said. "You have the first two. The last, from the place you now occupy, you will undoubtedly achieve. These things I now ask you to abandon.

I offer you in their place work, hard, hard work, the task of bringing a people from degradation, poverty and waste until full maturity." It was signed by Booker T. Washington, director of an industrial and teacher training institute for black students in Tuskegee, Alabama. Dr. Charlotte Morris: We talk about the Tuskegee experience around here and everyone, everyone talks about it, but no one can just come out and explain exactly what it is. We all know that there is something about that Tuskegee experience that keeps you here and keeps you wanting to do more. It may be the stomping grounds of Booker T.

Washington. Maybe it's George Washington Carver. Because those were two great men who walked the grounds of Tuskegee, so it is an honor and a privilege to support them and do something substantial for the university. Booker T. Washington was determined to make Tuskegee a leading educational institution in the South, and his most pressing need was to establish a department of agriculture. But to establish such a department, Washington recognized that he needed a black man with an advanced degree in agriculture. And in the entire country there was only one such man: George Washington Carver. To lure Carver to Tuskegee, Washington offered him an annual salary of $1,000 plus housing.

Despite Washington's warning about hard, very hard work, Carver responded. "It has always been an ideal of my life to be the greatest good for the greatest possible number of my people. And to this end I have been preparing myself during these many years, feeling at the same time that this line of education is the key to opening the golden door of freedom for our people. There he would remain until his death 47 years later. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Dyann Robinson: Booker T. and Carver believed that people should be taught not only how to live, but also how to live beautifully and live well and make beautiful things out of everything that was functional.

So I think that's important, that kind of contribution to learning that they gave and that legacy is what made two or three generations ago feel like they could do anything. We had these brilliant doctors, brilliant academics on campus because they had a place to be geniuses, to display their genius in this little cocoon, a little protective sphere. And it started with Booker T. and this school. He made a place, a space for people to excel. Carver was part of that. Carver had never been to the Deep South. Almost everything about Alabama's agricultural system, with its heavy reliance on cotton and its system of leasing land called sharecropping, horrified him.

Shirley Baxter: When he first came by train to Tuskegee, he talked about seeing all the poor sharecroppers' houses and thinking, wow, they could do better, and he knew he could help them do better. And he spent virtually his entire career here doing work that was going to influence and help local farmers improve the quality of their lives. In addition to being administrator of the agriculture department and two experimental farms, Washington expected Carver to teach a large number of classes, serve on the institute's executive committee, oversee campus beautification, act temporarily as its veterinarian, and establish an outreach program. for poor black farmers in the surrounding area.

Dana Chandler: Washington had a vision for Carver and Carver had another vision for himself. It was tumultuous at times, but I believe and know that they both respected each other. Carver began teaching him in an old shack with no facilities. To set up a laboratory of sorts, he had to rummage through piles of trash to find usable bottles and other items. Dr. Walter Hill: Why the hell did you come to Tuskegee? Where he arrived where people were envious of him, clearly the resources he obtained were less, he arrived in a hostile environment both politically and socially.

Despite all that, why did he come? You look and read the story and come down, to serve my people. That's the most fundamental piece I want to share from my 40-year point of view here because taking on that task is the most daunting task. Just a few years out of slavery, about a decade out of slavery, and right into the heart of the beast. The only way to achieve this is to be a warrior, to have courage, to be fearless. You have to be very mission-oriented. And he had to suffer the indignities that a black person had to suffer during that time and yet he continued his journey.

That is the true power, that is the true spirit within. Edie Powell: I think after a while you can get very frustrated and do something else. But he didn't and I think the essence of him is that he never wavered in what was his own commitment from the beginning. When Carver arrived in the South, there were approximately five million black farmers there. Only about a fifth of them owned land. Almost all shared a common problem: the over-reliance on cotton as the region's main cash crop, along with the sharecropping system used to produce it, which depleted the soil and kept tenant farmers in a permanent state of impoverishment.

Improving Southern agricultural practices and the lot of poor farmers became Carver's primary concern. ♪♪ ♪♪ Gary Kremer: I think Carver quickly recognized, whatever preconceived ideas he had about the South when he went there, he quickly recognized the enormity of the challenges that he faced. So I think he quickly concluded that he had to come up with some practical ways that would improve the lives of, for the most part, tenant farmers and sharecroppers living in the South. And he tried to impact their lives in tangible, specific ways that would help them on a day-to-day basis. Carver began urging farmers to rotate crops and use organic fertilizers.

He preached the value of planting soil-restoring crops, such as peanuts, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, and soybeans. Mark Hersey: He adapts it to the circumstances and develops a very different version of what scientific agriculture should be, one that emphasizes ecological thinking to a degree that few, perhaps no other Progressive Era efforts did. In the late 1930s, he looks back on his career and says: My job is conservation. And what did he mean by that? What would change about the way we understand the American conservation tradition if we took him seriously, if we looked at his work as part of that broader American tradition of conservation?

He issued bulletins that uneducated farmers could understand, explaining how these soil-restoring crops should be grown and what they could be used for. He devised a traveling demonstration wagon called the Jesup wagon and traveled down dusty roads to teach small groups of farmers how to improve their lives. "Start where you are with what you have," he said. "Do something with it. Never be satisfied." Luther Williams: he prophetically demonstrated two major current problems: the need for sustainability and conservation. ♪♪ Wherever he went, Carver had this innate ability to connect with people of all faiths, cultures, and colors. He had an effect on those he met, as they had an effect on him.

They learned from each other. The Tuskegee community was no different. Frank Godden: He wanted to know everything about me, my background, my mother, my father, my sisters and brothers. And from that moment on we became very good friends. Dyann Robinson: He liked the fat back and my dad liked it, that was his specialty. And Mr. Parker's friend, Felton Parker, was a baker but he was also a barber and he used to cut Carver's hair. And that's why Mr. Parker and my father were proud to know Carver and to be able to do something for him. They respected him, oh yes.

My dad was so proud that he gave Carver's fat back. Melonese Robinson: I had to have dinner at twelve. If he wasn't there, I wouldn't eat it. But one day a mother arrived with preeclampsia, she was pregnant. Well, that day she didn't have dinner at twelve noon. She received it at one. I told him why I was late. I said, a mother came in with preeclampsia, she was in a coma and Dr. Mitchell called us into the operating room and that's why your dinner was delayed. "Well, I wouldn't be in the world if it hadn't been for a female, my mother." He ate his dinner.

Sceiva Holland: She always said that Dr. Carver was a very kind person, very kind and attentive. And I said, well mom, how do you figure that out? She said, well, he would stop, he would talk,He would take his time. Thousands of letters from famous and unknown flooded Carver's modest office at Tuskegee Institute. Peter Burchard: People wrote to him about problems with their farms, their crops, almost anything. He seemed to be able to answer any question in the universe. He wrote more than 25,000 letters throughout his life. Well, he would receive all these letters, six, eight or ten, and he would read them at night, he would go to sleep and believe that the problems were solved while he slept in his subconscious.

And it seemed to work because his letters are full of revealing answers. Ken Quinn: When I visited Tuskegee University I had the extraordinary opportunity to stay in George Washington Carver's suite. And I realized how long he was there, half a century. And I think about how many students he interacted with and influenced and how many of those who participated in outreach work throughout the South as part of reaching all Black farm families. When you think about all those years, all those people, I don't know if that stands out to the extent it should. ♪♪♪♪ Most agreed that Carver was a talented teacher, whether in the classroom or on the field, who instilled a sense of wonder and curiosity in his students.

Gary Kramer: I interviewed several of his former students. It is true that they were quite old. But they had great admiration for him as a teacher. I don't think he was a conventional teacher who stood before the class and gave a lecture. A former student of his described him to me as Socrates. He said that he would never tell you anything, that he would force you to work yourself to find answers. And I think that's why the students found it so challenging and interesting. And there is abundant evidence that he spent enormous amounts of time with the students and that even after the students left, he corresponded with them.

And many of these letters, and I have read many of them, are addressed to him as Dear Dad, Dear Father, Dear Dad. And he often signed these letters as Your Father. He never married and never had children. I think his students were his substitute children in that sense. Melonese Robinson: Just a simple person, not difficult to talk to, just as kind and pleasant. You'd think he would be, being a genius, you'd think he'd be a little distant, a little selfish, not kind or polite at all. He just acted like a real human being. Frank Godden: You have to get an education and you have to do this and that.

And it really affected my life a lot. In administration and teacher policy, Carver was less skilled. Booker T. Washington, perhaps the most influential black man in the country in the early years of the 20th century, was increasingly distant from campus. Carver became embroiled in bitter rivalries that would eventually cost him the presidency of the agriculture department. Gary Kremer: Carver expected total deference. He didn't expect anyone to question his decisions or his actions. And as a result of that I think they collided. Dana Chandler: Carver resigned from Tuskegee several times and submitted his resignation. He was never accepted. (Laughter) But Carver believed in the work of Tuskegee to the point that when he died he left his entire fortune to Tuskegee. ♪♪ He stayed, in large part, because of his loyalty to his adopted region and its struggling farmers, and to the hundreds of earnest students, his "children," who idolized him.

As his tenure at Tuskegee approached two decades, George Washington Carver was well known and respected throughout the South and among farmers in other areas of the country. Then, in late 1915, an event took place that put Carver on the path to international stardom. Booker T. Washington died unexpectedly. Peter Burchard: They had a new president. Washington had only called himself Director. He had never said he was the president. But the new person, Robert Russo Moton, called himself President. He was very good, but things changed a lot for Carver as soon as Moton took over. Carver was starting to want to retreat to his lab a little more.

And he practically told the new president that he was going to do that. He didn't really ask. And he agreed. Then, suddenly, Carver was able to control his own destiny. Within a year, he was elected to the board of directors of the National Agricultural Society and became the first black man elected to the British Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. However, few of Carver's inventions saw widespread use and only three ideas were patented, two for paints produced from clays and one for cosmetics, leading some to question Carver's scientific legacy. Frank Godden: He had an inquisitive mind for developing things and he didn't care about money at all.

The auditor was on top of him the entire time to cash his checks. Dr. Walter Hill: One way to look at Carver's work is to simply think that he was the integrator of research and extension and that he devised the many uses of peanuts, ways of dealing with the boll weevil, and crop rotations. , that some people can say that this is not science because it is not basic. But it is real in terms of applying sciences that will serve society. Applied research has a real role. It doesn't have to be justified. Dana Chandler: That's always been a puzzle to me: people have claimed that Carver wasn't a good scientist or that he wasn't a scientist because they could never find any of his work to prove it.

Well, we have those jobs. They dispel all that. They are packed with numerous calculations, observations, he uses the scientific method over and over again. That alone should resolve the issue. Edie Powell: I think in everything he did he said he was looking for the truth, that's what science is about. So, I think he was true to himself and never wavered from what he truly believed. Carver rose to fame around 1920 for his work with peanuts, which eventually led to the creation of more than 300 products from the plant. Peter Burchard: He said that one time a woman came and said, Mr.

Carver, I planted all these peanuts and now what am I going to do with them? And he said, he had kind of a stupid face and I said, well, I'll think about it. And he came back to his laboratory and that's the famous story of him when he sat in the forest and said: Mr. Creator, he asked him what he should do. And the Creator said, well, what do you want? And he said, I want to know everything about nature, something very broad. And the Creator said, that is too big a question for you, little man, you must reduce it, increase the intention and decrease the extension.

And Carver said, well, how about we know about the peanuts? And he said the Creator said, well, that's a little bit more than your size but it's still infinite. So Carver got to work and created hundreds of products from peanuts and this was a demonstration, I mean, look what you can do. His work on peanuts intrigued people and therefore became the main feature of his public persona. Sometimes his message of planting crops that strengthen the soil was lost in all the attention he received in that phase of his work. ♪♪ And there were other factors that worked against the world hearing his message.

Mark Hersey: Ultimately, it is the political economy of the South that causes Carver's campaign to fail and this is because no matter how good his ideas were, and his ideas were very good, they were very ecologically sound and could mark a difference, and I argue that in some way they did make a difference. So in 1896, when Carver appears, there were about 150 black farmers who owned their own land in Macon County. There are over 500 for World War I, which is basically when Carver's campaign, at least as a prolonged effort, comes to an end. That's not all due to Carver's work, but Carver's campaign contributed to this growth.

But ultimately, the deep-seated racism in the Jim Crow South meant that Carver's plan had little hope of working in the long term. ♪♪ Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Carver gained increasing fame. Well-known people offered him work. Inventor Thomas Edison offered him a salary of $100,000 to come work in his laboratory in New Jersey. But he rejected it to remain among his people. He became friends with leaders from all over the world. In 1937, Carver met business magnate Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, at a meeting of pioneers of the chimurgical movement, a branch of applied chemistry that dealt with the preparation of industrial products from agricultural raw materials.

Over the next few years, Ford and Carver visited each other and remained in close contact. Peter Burchard: Henry Ford picked Carver's brain every chance he got. Ford had a large plantation in Ways, Georgia. In fact, he built a school on the property and called it the George Washington Carver School, he had Carver come and dedicate it and every time they met they would walk and Ford kept feeding Carver questions one after another to try to figure it out. how to use certain crops. Frank Godden: The last time Henry Ford visited, he was in Dorothy Hall and lived on the second floor.

And it was hard to go up and down those stairs. And Henry Ford called Montgomery to get an elevator company and put an elevator in Dorothy Hall from the first floor to the second floor for Dr. Carver. Henry Ford thought a lot about Dr. Carver. ♪♪ ♪♪ For African Americans, Carver had become living proof of a black man who had overcome great hardships and achieved greatness. Simon Estes: I have experienced a lot of discrimination that he experienced and I admired him for the obstacles that he faced. And he did all this with grace, with determination, with courage, never with bitterness.

So he was a great model to try to exemplify. Dyann Robinson: He was trying to get this whole group of people out of nowhere. ♪♪ For many southern whites, Carver showed the brilliance and heart that wordlessly challenged the system of strict segregation. To those who worked for racial harmony, he exemplified their ideal. Carver subscribed to the views of Booker T. Washington, which held that blacks should gain an economic foothold before attempting to break down social and political barriers. They had their critics. The African American scholar W.E.B. DuBois, the first black person to earn a Ph.D. of Harvard University, condemned what he described as his unwillingness to challenge white racism.

Gary Kremer: I think it's very complicated. Both men were born into slavery, DuBois was not. And I think they just tried to do the best they could with the understanding they had at the time. Carver has been criticized for being an accommodationist. One historian, Louis Harlan, in a book about Booker T., described Carver as "surpassing Booker." I think that's unfair to both men. I think Carver struggled with this his entire life. And we're still struggling with that today. Luther Williams: I think Carver's revolutionary disposition, if you want to call it that, was creativity, it was discovery, not activism in the social political context.

Could he have done more in that regard? Yes. But I think it was done differently. ♪♪ In 1938, when Carver was 74 years old, he was diagnosed with pernicious anemia and he was hospitalized for almost a year. As soon as he could, he returned to experimenting in his laboratory, preparing his legacy at the Carver Museum in Tuskegee and establishing the George Washington Carver Foundation to continue his work with farmers in need. ♪♪ George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943 at around age 78 and is buried on the Tuskegee campus, near Booker T. Washington. "He might have added fortune to fame," his epitaph reads, "but without caring for either he found happiness and honor in helping the world." ♪♪ Frank Godden: He was in the North African desert.

Edward R. Murrow, the distinguished broadcaster, broadcasting from London. He said that Dr. George Washington Carver, the distinguished American scientist, died today. It was sad, it was very sad news for me. And so, that was Dr. Carver's last. ♪♪ Seventy-five years after his death, the world still looks to Carver for inspiration. Students continue to report on his life and thousands of people still visit the places that honor him. His is a legacy that defies time. ♪♪ Peter Burchard: In 1941 he opened all of his works of art to the public. He did a big exhibition and there was nothing up until that point, all of his work from Simpson College and some of his since then.

People were amazed that this great expert in agriculture, chemist, botanist, etc., etc., was also an artist. A good friend of hers who worked, writing articles, asked her that question, Bess Walcott. She said, how could you do so many things? And he said, would you be surprised if I told you I've only been doing one thing? And he said, Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the English poet, was working on the same job and he took a little plant, a little plant in his hand with the roots still in it and the soil clinging to the roots and he quoted Tennyson, "Flower in the cracked wall, I tear you from the cracks.

I have you here root and everything in my hand. Little flower, but if I could understand what you are root and everything and everything in everything, I would know what God and man is." And this was really the core of Carver's thinking. He said Tennyson was searching for the truth. That's what the artist looks for, that's what the scientist looks for, and that's what I've been doing my whole life. ♪♪ ♪♪♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Funding for George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life is brought to you by -- ♪♪ Wherever your operation takes you or whoever you share it with, we'll be where you are' I've been with you all the time time from the first moment. ♪♪ The Wallace Genetics Foundation. ♪♪ The Alliant Energy Foundation. ♪♪ And for the Des Moines Community Playhouse. ♪♪