January 21, 1921: George Washington Carver's Congressional Testimony

January 21, 1921: George Washington Carver, America's most prominent living scientist -- and America's most prominent living black person -- testifies before the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1921, peanut farmers and representatives of the peanut industry planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff. Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked them to testify on the tariff issue before "Ways and Means," the committee that writes tax policy.

Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for a black person to be treated as an expert witness. Carver appeared, and unpacked numerous exhibits and samples to make his case for greater food and industrial uses for the peanut.

Southern Congressmen, all of them white supremacists, and some of them active members of the Ku Klux Klan, mocked him. But as he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture and manufacturing, committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony.

The Fordney-McCumber Tariff -- named for its sponsors, Representative Joseph Fordney of Michigan and Senator Porter McCumber of North Dakota, both Republicans -- was passed the next year, and signed into law by President Warren G. Harding. It included a duty on imported peanuts. It raised the purchasing power of the farmers by 2 to 3 percent, but other industries raised the price of some farm equipment. In September 1926, economic statistics released by farming groups revealed the rising cost of farm machinery.

Carver's testimony, including samples of peanut milk, peanut flour, industrial dyes made from peanuts, and other peanut-based products, made him widely known as a public figure.

Carver was born into slavery, and, as a result, his birthdate is not known for sure. He was probably born sometime around the New Year of 1864, and definitely on a farm in Diamond, 16 miles southeast of Joplin in southwestern Missouri.

He eventually went to high school in Kansas, and a piano teacher noticed his interest in botany, encouraging him to study it at what is now Iowa State University. He was the school's 1st black student, became its 1st black faculty member, and earned Bachelor's and Masters degrees there. (Iowa State is now the only major football-playing college with a stadium named for a black player, Jack Trice Stadium.)

Booker T. Washington, the 1st president of the school now known as Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, invited him to head its Agriculture Department. He taught there for the rest of his life, 47 years. He taught crop rotation, and discovered which crops and which kinds of soil worked best together, moving American agriculture forward, North and South, East and West, white and black.

He often traveled, telling of the Tuskegee Institute, and of his work there, spreading its fame from coast to coast, making him perhaps the greatest salesman that what are now called "Historically Black Colleges and Universities" (HBCUs) have ever had.

On the December 15, 1984 episode of Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy did a "Black History Minute" sketch. As Professor Shabazz K. Morton, he mentioned a dinner that Carver had: "Professor Carver’s two dinner guests, Edward “Skippy” Williamson and Frederick “Jif” Armstrong, two white men, stole George Washington Carver’s recipe for peanut butter, copyrighted it, and reaped untold fortunes from it. While Dr. Carver died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut." It was funny, and yet not funny at the same time, as it was indicative of how black innovators have been treated by white-written American history.

But it wasn't true: When Carver died, on January 5, 1943, a few days after an accidental fall down stairs, believed to be about 79 years old, his frugal habits left him with savings of $60,000 -- with inflation, just under $1 million in 2022 money. And while the Skippy brand of peanut butter was introduced in 1932, during Carver's lifetime, Jif did not appear until 1955. (Skippy is now owned by Hormel Foods, while Jif was produced by Procter & Gamble until being bought out by Smucker's.)

He was buried in Tuskegee, next to Booker T. Washington, although the mutual admirers sometimes argued over administrative matters. In 1941, while Carver was still alive, The George Washington Carver Museum was opened at Tuskegee. In 1942, Henry Ford -- who apparently hated Jews but had little problem with black people, and became friends with Carver -- recreated Carver's log cabin birthplace as part of his Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, outside Detroit in Dearborn, Michigan. The farm in Diamond, Missouri, where Carver grew up is now the George Washington Carver National Monument.

A high school on the largely-black South Side of Chicago is named for him, as was the fictional high school in Los Angeles that was the setting for the basketball-themed TV show The White Shadow.

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January 21, 1921 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And no games were scheduled in the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.