[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 10, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H9954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RECOGNIZING GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Brooks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, renowned Alabama educator, 
artist, and botanist George Washington Carver, like many Americans, 
overcame numerous obstacles to achieve greatness. Carver's 
contributions to science and agriculture made a huge impact that is 
still felt across the globe today.
  On January 5, 2020, Alabama will unveil a historic marker honoring 
Dr. Carver at Decatur's Horizon School.
  Carter visited Decatur in 1935. Carver Elementary was named in his 
honor. During his visit, Carver spoke to an audience of more than 1,000 
Decatur residents. In a letter to then-superintendent W.W. Henson after 
his visit, George Washington Carver wrote: ``The Carver School far 
exceeds my expectations. It is a most beautiful building, and I hope 
that it will be able in every way to integrate itself into the up-
building and the development of the splendid possibilities which lie 
all around you.''
  Carver was deeply devoted to education. During the Civil War, George 
Washington Carver was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri. Shamefully, 
Carver was not allowed to attend public schools near his home because 
he was an African American. But that did not stop George Washington 
Carver. He was determined to get an education, so he enrolled at a 
school 10 miles away in Neosho, Missouri.

  In Neosho, Carver was befriended by Mariah Watkins, from whom he 
rented a room. Mariah Watkins' advice to Carver was simple: ``You must 
learn all you can, then go back into the world and give your learning 
back to the people.'' Carver did just that.
  Disappointed in the quality of Neosho's school, Carver moved to 
Kansas and supported himself through a variety of occupations while he 
furthered his education as he could. After earning his high school 
diploma, he discovered opportunities for college for Black men in 
Kansas were nonexistent. So George Washington Carver majored in art at 
Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, as their only Black student.
  Encouraged by his Simpson professors to focus on botany, Carver 
transferred to Iowa State, where he earned his bachelor's and master's 
degrees in science. Thereafter, in April 1896, Booker T. Washington 
recruited Carver to Tuskegee Institute's agricultural school in 
Alabama, where Carver taught and mentored generations of students for 
the next 47 years.
  At Tuskegee, Carver developed revolutionary techniques to improve 
soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other 
agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their 
soils by practicing systematic crop rotation, alternating cotton crops 
with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes, such as peanuts, soybeans, 
and cowpeas.
  Once at Tuskegee, Carver trained farmers to rotate and cultivate the 
new crops successfully. Carver developed and established an 
agricultural extension program for all of Alabama. Carver founded an 
industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to 
popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for 
them.
  In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in 
England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive 
this honor. The United Peanut Associations of America invited Carver to 
speak at their 1920 convention. He discussed ``The Possibilities of the 
Peanut'' and exhibited 145 peanut products.
  Carver received the 1923 NAACP Spingarn Medal for outstanding 
achievement by an African American.
  Before his death in 1943, Carver donated his life savings to 
establish the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee.
  Carver was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of 
Fame.
  The George Washington Carver National Monument was the first national 
monument dedicated to a Black American and the first to a non-
President.
  George Washington Carver left a lasting legacy on Alabama's schools, 
and Alabama is proud to have been the home of this renowned scientific 
leader.

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