Booker T. Washington, Builder of a CivilizationScott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
History
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization
Scott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
He would, for instance, tell the attendants at the conferences what to
plant and when to plant it, and what live stock to keep and how to
keep it. He would have printed and distributed among them a "Farmer's
Calendar" which gave the months in which the various standard
vegetables should be planted and what crops should be used in
rotation. He constantly insisted that the Experiment Station at
Tuskegee Institute, supported by the State of Alabama, should not be
used for scientific experiments of interest only to experts, but
should deal with the fundamental problems with which the Negro farmers
of Alabama were daily confronted. The titles of some of the Experiment
Station Bulletins selected at random suggest the homely and practical
nature of the information disseminated. Half a dozen of them read as
follows: "Possibilities of the Sweet Potato in Macon County, Alabama,"
"How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human
Consumption," "How to Raise Pigs with Little Money," "When, What, and
How to Can and Preserve Fruits and Vegetables in the Home," "Some
Possibilities of the Cowpea in Macon County, Alabama," "A New and
Prolific Variety of Cotton." And all of these bulletins, so many of
which deal with the problems of the home, are written by an old
bachelor of pure African descent, without a drop of white blood, who
in himself refutes two popular fallacies: the one that bachelors
cannot be skilled in domestic affairs, and the other, that
pure-blooded Africans cannot achieve intellectual distinction. This
man is George W. Carver, who is not only the most eminent agricultural
scientist of his race in this country, but one of the most eminent of
any race. His work is so well known in scientific circles in his field
throughout the world that when leading European scientists visit this
country, particularly the Southern States, they not infrequently go
out of their way to look him up. They are usually very much surprised
to find their eminent fellow-scientist a black man.
The last of these conferences over which Booker Washington presided
was held at Tuskegee, January 20 and 21, 1915. A woman, the wife of a
Negro farmer, was testifying when she said: "Our menfolks is foun' out
dat they can't eat cotton." As the outburst of laughter which greeted
this remark died down, Mr. Washington said in his incisive way: "What
do you mean?" The woman replied: "I mean dat we womenfolks been
tellin' our menfolks all de time dat they should raise mo to eat."
She then displayed specimens of canned fruits and told how she had put
up enough of them to supply her family until summer. She told of
having sold thirty-six turkeys and of selling two and three dozen eggs
each week, with plenty left over for her family. She said that she and
her husband had raised and sold hogs, and still had for their own use
more than enough pork to last them until the next hog-killing time.
"How often do you eat chicken?" asked Dr. Washington.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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