George Washington Carver, Perseverance and Resourcefulness
This is an electronic version of our Glimpses for Kids children's worship bulletin inserts.
These are designed to present Christian biographies for Children's church, educational or worship ministries.  George
Washington Carver in a garden.
Perseverance: "Be Like Libby"
George Carver's eyes widened as he untied the
paper wrapping and took out the worn leather Bible. "A Christmas
present for me?" he said in surprise.
"For when you learn to read," said the kindly midwife. Mariah
Watkins had seen the fourteen-year-old boy sitting on her fence earlier
that fall of 1875, looking hungry and lost. He'd walked to Neosha, Missouri,
to attend the Lincoln School for Colored Children--but he had no money
or a place to live. The Watkinses had taken him in and were amazed at
how hard he worked for his keep. The boy had promise.
"Do you know how to read, Aunt Mariah?" George asked.
Mariah's eyes got misty. "Before the Civil War, I was a slave,
just like your mammy. Of all the slaves on the plantation, only one, a
woman named Libby, knew how to read. If our master had found out, she
probably would've been sold down river to the South quick as a blink,
because any slave who had some learnin' was considered uppity and dangerous.
But Libby refused to keep this gift to herself and secretly taught some
of us how to read." Mariah took the boy by the shoulders. "George,
you must learn all you can, then be like Libby. Go out in the world and
give your learnin' back to our people. They're starvin' for a little learnin'."
George was eager to learn and began reading the Bible, a daily habit
that gave him strength to the end of his life. But he soon learned everything
the Neosha teacher could teach him. Hitching a wagon ride to Fort Scott,
Kansas, he got a job cooking to earn money for school books. But one day
he saw a black man dragged out of jail and burned to death by an angry
mob. Frightened, he realized it was dangerous to have dark skin in Fort
Scott.
Traveling from town to town in the Midwest, doing odd jobs, George finally
graduated from high school. He excelled in botany, biology, chemistry
and art--but there was so much more to learn! Hardly daring to hope, he
applied to a Presbyterian college in Highland, Kansas. One day the longed-for
letter arrived: He had been accepted! That fall he eagerly arrived on
campus. But the dean took one look and said, "You didn't tell us
you were a Negro. Highland College does not take Negroes."
George was devastated. Was this the end of the road for him?
 A
few years later, renewing his courage, he applied to Simpson College and
was accepted--only the second black person in the college's history. At
his art teacher's urging, he transferred to the Iowa State College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts to study horticulture--even though he was
barred from the student dining room and had to eat with the kitchen staff.
He suffered this indignity patiently, telling himself that ignorant people
would not keep him from his duty. The school quickly changed its mind
when a prominent white woman who admired George's paintings came to visit
him and insisted on eating with him in the kitchen.
After obtaining his master's degree, George was offered a job as professor
at Iowa State. But in his mind he heard Mariah Watkins' voice saying,
"Be like Libby. Give your learnin' back to your people." When
a letter from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama arrived, asking Professor
Carver to come teach southern blacks new ways to farm, he knew immediately
this was the task God had been preparing him for all along.
Find out how George Washington Carver turned junk
into useful equipment in part 2 of this "Glimpses for Kids"
children's worship bulletin insert.
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