Image source: Tuskegee University (link below), and The Jessup Wagon: Rooted in History, Still Used Today, Alabama A&M & Auburn Universities, Wendi Williams
Topics: African Americans, Agriculture, Black History Month, Botany, Civics, Civil Rights, Diaspora, Diversity in Science
As a botany and agriculture teacher to the children of ex-slaves, Dr. George Washington Carver wanted to improve the lot of “the man farthest down,” the poor, one-horse farmer at the mercy of the market and chained to land exhausted by cotton.
Unlike other agricultural researchers of his time, Dr. Carver saw the need to devise practical farming methods for this kind of farmer. He wanted to coax them away from cotton to such soil-enhancing, protein-rich crops as soybeans and peanuts and to teach them self-sufficiency and conservation.
Dr. Carver achieved this through an innovative series of free, simply-written brochures that included crop information, cultivation techniques, and recipes for nutritious meals. He also urged the farmers to submit soil and water samples for analysis and taught them livestock care and food preservation techniques.
In 1906, he designed the Jessup Wagon, a demonstration laboratory on wheels, which he believed to be his most significant contribution toward educating farmers.
Dr. Carver’s practical and benevolent approach to science was based on a profound religious faith to which he attributed all his accomplishments. He always believed that faith and inquiry were not only compatible paths to knowledge but that their interaction was essential if truth in all its manifold complexity was to be approximated.
Always modest about his success, he saw himself as a vehicle through which nature, God, and the natural bounty of the land could be better understood and appreciated for the good of all people.
Dr. Carver took a holistic approach to knowledge, which embraced faith and inquiry in a unified quest for truth. Carver also believed that commitment to a Larger Reality is necessary if science and technology are to serve human needs rather than the egos of the powerful. His belief in service was a direct outgrowth and expression of his wedding of inquiry and commitment. One of his favorite sayings was:
“It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.”
The Legacy of Dr. George Washington Carver, Tuskegee University
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