The Other Peanut Farmer who changed the World!!

Top of the weekend my friends! Do you know about the other peanut farmer who changed the world? His name “George Washington Carver”! Just in case you aren’t familiar with this American History pioneer? Come closer.......

Ask President Franklin D. Roosevelt who created the first non-presidential national monument in his honor! Interesting huh?

Add to that list Presidents Dwight D Eisenhower and Harry S.Truman. Both issued proclamations that on his date of birth, the 5th of January. The nation must honor the memory of this amazing man! Eisenhower added it is?our nation’s way to rededicate ourselves to the principles of common humanity.

As my grandmother would say “You gotta know where you’ve been in order to know where you’re going”.

George Washington Carver knew! He was one of the most respected agricultural researchers all time! His work helped revive the stagnant agricultural economy of the South after the Civil War. Frankly “Scarlet” your should give a damn!

Carver fame was not just with peanut. However he did invent more than 300 products involving the crop. Which includes dyes, plastics, and gasoline, but not peanut butter.? Nope, that honor goes to Marcellus Gilmore Edison and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (of cereal fame) who by the way, was inspired by Carver.

Anyway, he also created 325 uses for peanuts, 108 applications for sweet potatoes and 75 products made from pecans. Carver was also the pioneer for the process of Crop Rotation.

For you city slickers, this prominent Black Scientist invented a new system of using alternative crops to prevent soil depletion.

Nicknamed “the Plant Doctor” this botanist and inventor was one of the most prominent scientists of the early 20th century. He was the first African American to have a national monument to be named in his honor!

The longtime professor at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, was an advocate for all farmers. This internationally renowned botanist consulted for President Teddy Roosevelt and India’s Mahatma Gandhi yet his main focus was America first!

He was born into slavery around 1864 in Missouri. As an infant, Carver and his mother were kidnapped by slave raiders. He was eventually brought back, but his mother was never heard from again.

As a teenager he traveled a lot with a foster family. Black people weren’t allowed to attend school in Diamond Grove, Mo. or Fort Scott Kansas. The welcome mat happened in Minneapolis, Kansas. Where he earned his High School diploma.

Side note, his middle name was not “Washington”. His landlord Mariah Watkins provided a room for the trailblazer. However there was another George Carver in the building. Which created some mail delivery issues. A decision was made to add the letter “W”? to address this dilemma. Someone asked George “does the “W” stand for Washington?”. He said “Sure”.? And it stuck,? George “Washington” Carver was re-born!

Carver taught at Tuskegee University for almost a half century. He never married and died from complications from anemia after a fall in his Tuskegee home. He is buried along side noted African American educator Booker T. Washington.

Dr King Martin Luther King Jr said that you should “judge people by the content of their character”. So I close with this “content” from Mr Carver:

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all is these”.

George Washington Carver -The other peanut farmer who changed the world!!? Donut you ever forget it!