February is Black History Month. Each week the Anti-Racism Task Force will be sharing with you stories of African Americans who have made an impact on our lives and our culture.

George Washington Carver
 
George Washington Carver was born a slave in 1864 in Diamond, MO during the Civil War.  Within a week of his birth, he and his mother were kidnapped along with other slaves by night raiders from Arkansas. His mother and the rest of those who were kidnapped were sold in Kentucky, but he and his brother James were saved through an agent of Moses Carver.  Moses Carver and his wife Susan raised the two boys as their own. Local schools did not allow African American children to attend school so the Carvers taught them how to read and write. 

 
At age 11, Carver left the farm to attend an all-black school in a nearby town of Neosho.  After receiving his diploma in 1880 from Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, KS, he applied to Highland College in Kansas.  He was initially accepted at the all-white college but was later rejected when the administration learned he was black.

Hearing that Iowa might have a college that would accept him, he came to Winterset, Iowa where he found work at a hotel.  In 1890 Carver was encouraged to apply to Simpson College (a Methodist college). He was accepted into the art program. In 1891 he transferred to the Iowa State Agricultural School, now Iowa State University to study botany.  He became the first African American student there to earn a Bachelor of Science degree.

Encouraged by his professors at Iowa State, he continued research at the Iowa Experiment Station for two years.  His work in pathology and mycology (the study of fungi) earned him national recognition as a botanist.  In 1896, the president of the Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington, invited him to become the head of their Agricultural Department.  He accepted the offer and soon introduced alternative crops for farmers. He introduced the concept of crop rotation and conducted research on crop products.

In 1938, he established the George Washington Carver Foundation which aimed to continue research activities in the field of agriculture.  He donated a sum of $60,000 to the Foundation.  In 1939, he received the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture.  He died in Tuskegee, Alabama on January 5,1943 at the age of 80.
 

Caregivers at Unity Point can use some encouragement as they prepare for what might be coming. If you would like to offer a word of encouragement, click link here:

https://www.unitypoint.org/desmoines/thank-you-caregivers.aspx