On Race and Nationality: George Washington Carver

There is a constant struggle in theology between liberalism and conservatism when it comes to God’s relationship to the world. Liberalism argues that, while humans are not perfect, they are good enough to make positive changes in the world. Conservatism tends to focus on human sin, arguing that, while forgiven and redeemed, humans continue to put selfishness before the needs of others.

As an example, in recent American history, the Social Gospel Movement--at the beginning of the 20^thcentury--argued that humans, guided by God’s love and purpose, could continue to make the world a better and more humane place. Two World Wars then gave birth to Neo-Orthodoxy, a type of conservatism that focused on the inability of sinful humans to move beyond evil to create a better world.

In light of this theological and spiritual struggle it is enlightening to reflect on the life and mission of George Washington Carver, whose birthplace and National Historical Site I visited last month in Diamond Grove, Missouri.

Nationalism, by definition, creates an “us versus them” dichotomy, and often that distinction is based on race. Our nation began with the violent displacement of Native Americans and the bringing of Africans in chains across the ocean to do the work that whites did not want to do. There were many dimensions to the Civil War, but one of them was the moral struggle to place the human rights of slaves above the nationalistic intent of the Confederacy to continue to maintain itself on the backs of those slaves. 

It was into this situation that George Washington Carver was born into slavery right near the end of the Civil War. Even though the Civil War would soon end, that hardly put an end to racism. As George himself wrote, as a young boy “my sister, mother, and myself were ku Cluckled (this was his exact wording, meaning that the Carver farm was raided) and they were sold back into slavery in Arkansas. However, Moses and Susan Carver sent a man with money to buy them back. George was the only one he found (he never learned what happened to his mother and sister) and, in his words, he was “brought back, nearly dead with the whooping cough.”

Never treated by the Carvers as a slave, and too weak physically to do much work, George spent his days wandering in the woods by the stream in Diamond Grove that you can still visit today. He had an intense desire for knowledge, and cared for all the plants and flowers growing around him. In fact, he became known as the “Plant Doctor,” not just because he used plants to heal, but because he learned how to heal pants damaged by wind or rain.

Soon he wanted to expand his knowledge by going to school but the local schools would not accept blacks, and so George walked 8 miles to nearby Nesbo, which accepted blacks in their school. Schooling in several different places followed this until he was accepted into Simpson College in Winterset, Iowa, where, as the only black student, he achieved a degree in art. From there he went to what is now Iowa State University and earned both Bachelor and Masters in Agriculture degrees. It was shortly thereafter that George was invited by Booker T. Washington to head the new agricultural department at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.

George’s special concern was how newly freed slaves on their small plots of land could possibly compete with the large cotton-raising plantations. He created a demonstration wagon that went around to small farmers to teach them the best farming techniques. And then he developed new uses for peanuts and soybeans, which would both enrich the soil and create new products for market. He discovered over 300 uses for peanuts, including rubbing oil used in massage therapy with polio patients.

George first gained national attention in 1921 when he testified before a US House committee debating a peanut tariff bill. At first members of the committee made fun of him and his peanut research. However George--with the same demeanor Jackie Robinson would later demonstrate--kept his cool and won the committee over with his research and wisdom. Eventually he would be invited to speak at universities where African Americans had never been invited to speak before, and he became a symbol of interracial cooperation.

George traced his spirituality back to his time as a youth in nature, writing, “All my life I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked to God. There He gives me my orders for the day."

One of those orders included his research with peanuts. As he explains, with humor, “When I was young I said to God, ‘God, tell me the mystery of the universe.’ But God answered, ‘That knowledge is reserved for me alone.’ So I said, ‘God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.’ Then God said, ‘Well George, that's more nearly your size.’ And he told me."

George traced the root of racism back to fear, writing, “Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. . . . . .We are brothers, all of us, no matter what race or color or condition; children of the same Heavenly Father. We rise together or we fall together.”

He then tried in his own life to model a moving away from fear and selfishness to a deeper understanding of the meaning and purpose of life: “Selfishness and self are at the bottom of a lot of troubles in the world. So many people fail to realize that serving God and one’s fellowman are the only worthwhile things in life. It is service that counts.”

As during the Civil Rights tour we took throughout the South in 2012, I am so impressed by how our National Park Service has created and maintains sites that describe the struggle to indeed form a “more perfect union” by overcoming the racism that was inherent in our founding. However, the rise of white nationalism, anti-Semitism, prejudice again immigrants, and all kinds of racism remind us that proclaiming “never again” is not a statement that can be said once, and then forgotten, but is a constant struggle in the ongoing journey toward freedom, justice, reconciliation and the creation of community.