Carver's Peanut Gallery

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Here’s a video for Chapter 4 of my life of Carver, which covers his time studying art at Simpson College in Iowa. Enjoy!

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Here's the Chapter 3 video for my George Washington Carver website, georgewashingtoncarver.us Enjoy!

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Stevie Wonder sings a verse about George Washington Carver in his song "Same Old Story," from the soundtrack of the motion picture Secret Life of Plants.Images from the extensive Carver collection of Peter D. Burchard, from the website georgewashingtoncarver.us, where you can also see James Brown talking about Carver.

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George Washington Carver

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As a very small boy exploring the almost virgin woods of the old Carver place I had the impression someone had just been there ahead of me. Things were so orderly, so clean, so harmoniously beautiful. A few years later in this same woods I was to understand the meaning of this boyish impression, because I was practically overwhelmed with the sense of some Great Presence. Not only had someone been there. Someone was there. I knew even then it was the Great Spirit of the universe. Years later when I read in the Scriptures, “In Him we live and move and have our being,” I knew what the writer meant. Never since have I been without this consciousness of the Creator speaking to me through flowers, rocks, animals, plants, and all other aspects of His creations.

George Washington Carver

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George Washington Carver conversing with flowers

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“I heard a person say, ‘There goes a fellow in a living hell.’ This can be true. We make our own hell or heaven. We bring upon ourselves little moments of hell when we think and act a little meanly toward a fellow student or a fellow American, black or white. When our thoughts, which bring actions, are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be. While hate puts us in a living hell, holding good thoughts brings us an opposite state of happiness, success, peace; we are then in heaven.”

George Washington Carver

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George Washington Carver clipping the anthers from a lily flower for cross-pollination with a red-tinged amaryllis.

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A woman invited George Washington Carver to the local white Methodist church to hear her dedicate their new pipe organ, and he declined. She persisted by clearing it officially with the minister and church leaders and assured him there would be no fuss. “I appreciate your asking,” he answered, “and thank you again. But if your playing is to be in tune, nothing untoward must enter in and mar its grace. If I were to step inside your church, there would certainly be some individuals who would make me feel not welcome. By the time the hustling and bustling, looking around at me and wondering, “What’s he doing here?” were over, and a suitably removed place were found for me to sit, I would not be in tune. The best thing within me could not respond. So I think I had best stay at home.”

Draft of Heaven on Earth: George Washington Carver's Life and Vision

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My video on George Washington Carver's first 13 years, from George Washington Carver and His Vision of Heaven on Earth. Enjoy!

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I have refused to leave Tuskegee Institute to take up any one of several flattering offers made me by corporations. I believe that if I should leave the Institute where so much of my work has been a success, my gift would fail me. My work would not be known as mine, and my people would get no credit. I want my people to have the credit for whatever I may do.

George Washington Carver

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There's a lot to learn about this wonderful man. Have a look! The site is called George Washington Carver and His Vision of Heaven on Earth.

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By nature I am a conserver. I have found nature to be a conserver. Nothing is wasted or permanently lost in nature. Things change their form, but they do not cease to exist. After I leave this world, I do not believe I am through. God would be a bigger fool than even a man if He did not conserve what seems to be the most important thing he has yet done in the universe. This kind of reasoning may aid the young. When you get your grip on the last rung of the ladder and look over the wall, as I am now doing, you don’t need their proofs; you see. You know you will not die.

George Washington Carver

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George Washington Carver in his art class at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, 1890.

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There is not any one or two things will settle the race question, except the golden rule way of living. If we would all live in accordance with the Golden Rule, all race questions and issues would pale into insignificance. Until I learn to treat other people as I would like to have them treat me, I see but very little hope for us. Mere book learning will not do it alone, neither will money; [though] both, of course, are essential.

George Washington Carver

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George Washington Carver in his lab at Tuskegee

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"A person is at liberty to experiment with anything that he can. We try anything that shows promise; we feel around—when we don’t know, we feel around until we happen to hit upon something. Our eyes and ears are always open. We must be patient and wait, as were the old prophets. Isaiah and the old prophets always had their eyes and ears open… Isaiah, listening, heard a voice. "We have so much noise now that we hear nothing but noise. It comes and goes, and that’s all of it, just noise. We can’t think very well now because there are so many noises of different kinds."

George Washington Carver