George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (1860s - January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who was born into slavery in Missouri. He is best known for his work in developing crop rotation techniques and promoting the use of alternative crops, particularly peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans, as alternatives to cotton.

Carver was the first African American student and faculty member at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University), where he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in agricultural science. He also served as the head of the Agricultural Department at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for over 40 years, where he developed and taught new methods of farming to help poor Southern farmers.

Carver is credited with discovering over 300 uses for peanuts and more than 100 uses for sweet potatoes, including a range of foods, cosmetics, dyes, and industrial products. He also developed a number of new products, including peanut butter, paper, soap, and ink.

Carver was widely respected during his lifetime for his work in agricultural science, and he received numerous honors and awards for his contributions. Today, he is remembered as a pioneering scientist and inventor who made significant contributions to American agriculture and industry.

There is leadership that talks and there is leadership that works and in the hall of fame of great black leaders over the decades, George Washington Carver was a leader that worked. His leadership was not the kind that tried to capture publicity or make great fame for himself. He didn’t try to start a movement or achieve change through violence or confrontation, although those things are sometimes necessary.

Instead George Washington Carver showed leadership by making contributions to the welfare of his people that would last a lifetime. His selfless spirit is an inspiration to all peoples of any race, creed or color.

George Washington Carver is probably best known for his discoveries in the use of the peanut. And while it’s true that Carver was credited with over 300 discoveries to find new uses for the common peanut, his innovations did not end there. He continued his research to find important uses for other common agricultural products such as the sweet potato, pecans and soybeans.

George Washington Carver truly took the hands of his people where they were at the time and lead them forward to a better life. And where the black community was in the nineteenth century was agriculture. This was where a black family looked for their food, their living and their opportunity to better themselves. And that is what George Washington Carver made possible.

As he found success in his private career, he never used his discoveries to gather wealth of fame for himself. Instead he wanted his work to benefit his people and all of mankind. He was quotes as saying concerning his talents, “God gave them to me. How can I sell them to someone else?”

These were not just idle words that he spoke because he lived that philosophy evidenced by when he donated his life savings to start the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee to make sure that an institution existed to continue his important work in agriculture. Small wonder that the fitting remembrance that was etched on his grave read “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”

The legacy of George Washington Carver would be one that set the standard high for black leadership in decades to come. It was a legacy of servant leadership, of concern for his people and for making genuine contributions to improving what was really important, the living standard and well being for all African Americans, not just the fortunate few. He is truly an inspiration for all of us who look at the struggle the black community has endured over the centuries and a figure to celebrate as a bright and shining leader in black history.