10 Christians: George Washington Carver, Part 3 by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The best revenge is mad success

Don't cry for long over what you lost. Get up, pick up your life, and succeed in every direction. Put the one who hurt you in a position where they regret leaving. If the god of this world had known, he would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Let that be your story.

Reading from 10 Christians Everyone Should Know by John Perry: George Washington Carver

By 1913, Professor Carver was seventeen years into teaching at Tuskegee, and he had lost none of his enthusiasm or compassion for his students.

Don't let yourself become jaded or cynical about what you do. Maintain your enthusiasm. Maintain your compassion.

Carver treated new students more like a friend than a professor, asking about their families and becoming a sympathetic ear for whatever problems they carried. He kept writing to many of his students for years after they graduated, following their careers and encouraging them to be kind to others, often addressing them as "my dear boy" with a fatherly tone.

He was not the kind of teacher who used his position to exploit students. For three decades afterward, generations of students told stories of his kindness and treasured the hundreds of letters he wrote them.

Carver also had a keen interest in developing useful products from simple, natural ingredients. As early as 1902 he identified a clay sample as a source of a paint pigment equal to what was already on the market, though manufacturers dismissed his samples out of prejudice, only considering them because of who he was. In 1911 he began making whitewash, paint and wood stain from local clay with his chemistry students, and the school started using it on their own buildings at a fraction of the commercial cost. He went on to experiment with dyes from tomatoes, radishes, maple bark and onions.

Underneath everything Carver studied was his belief in a Creator who had made it all and given him the insight to understand it. A former student said his faith was the key to everything he had been able to do.

Do you give God the glory in your life?

While Carver worked quietly at Tuskegee, Booker T. Washington became the most famous black man in America, writing books, meeting presidents, and taking tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle. Washington's health failed in his final years, and he died in his own bed in November after a fundraising trip left him gravely ill.

Carver was shattered by his death, even though he had always stood in Washington's shadow. He never seemed to mind. He remained in his classroom, his laboratory and his woods, nurturing his plants and his students.

By 1916 Carver's reputation began to gather momentum. It was his time.

I had been in ministry for thirty-five years before my own reputation gained traction only last year. I have simply stayed with what God called and equipped me to do.

The mainstream establishment began paying him new attention: he joined the advisory board of the National Agricultural Society and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in London. When America entered World War I and overseas trade halted, Carver overflowed with ideas for homegrown substitutes for imported goods, working on rubber from sweet potato and rope from peanut shells, pigments from local clay, and bread flour from sweet potatoes.

After the Allied victory in 1918, American growers, fearing they would be priced out by cheaper foreign goods, lobbied Congress for protective tariffs. One routine lobbying hearing would go on to transform George Washington Carver from an obscure botany professor into an international celebrity.