Black History Month: People Who Changed the World #5 · 9:23pm Feb 5th, 2018

Welcome to another installment in my Month-Long anthology which depicts specific African-American people who, in one way or another, changed the world. Today, we would like to shine a light on a botanist by the name of George Washington Carver.

Bio: George Washington Carver (1860s – January 5, 1943), was an American botanist and inventor. He became well-known to the public due to his active promotion of alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion.

While a professor at Tuskegee Institutute, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.

Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of very high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".

My Thoughts: In my opinion, I say George Washington Carver was indeed a masterful inventor and botanist. With his inventions, the modern usage of peanuts and other legumes as a sort of "filler plant" for in between crop harvest seasons was truly a brilliant mindset. Among his over 300+ inventions, his work with peanuts will what he will be mostly remembered for. And Now! A quote from George Washington Carver: