Most of us have enjoyed eating peanuts at a ball game, zoo, or theme park. Even more of us have satisfied our hunger with a sandwich smeared with peanut butter and filled with grape jelly, bananas, tomatoes, or other tasty additions. Peanuts are one of God’s great gifts to humanity that continue to bless and nourish us in many ways.
But it was not always so. For many years, peanuts were primarily a feed for lucky livestock. The story of how this plant transformed our diets and southern agriculture is almost solely written by one man, George Washington Carver.
Although cotton had been king throughout the south, it was a greedy monarch that taxed the soil of its nutrients. Because of this, yields were falling and farmers were becoming apprehensive about their heretofore golden hen. Then the boll weevil invaded what was left and devastated the farm economy, complete with foreclosures and bankruptcies.
By the time that happened, Carver was already looking for ways to replenish the ground and encouraged growers to rotate their crops, especially by incorporating legumes like peanuts that return nitrogen to the soil. Unfortunately, although they grew well and helped the cotton plants, there was little economic demand for these underground beans. 
Carver reported asking, “Please, Mr. Creator, will you tell me why the peanut was made?” And Mr. Creator did. In addition to peanut butter and salted peanuts, Carver developed or popularized peanut flour, flakes, meal, cream, cheese, coca, curds, pancakes, wafers, pickles, punch, ice cream, coffee, 32 kinds of milk and hundreds of other products and additives. Who knew God had packed all that into a tiny shell growing in the soil? Carver also developed multiple uses for sweet potatoes, soybeans, cowpeas, okra, and pecans.
The brilliant black scientist derived all of these in his laboratory that he termed, “God’s Little Workshop.” He said “Without God…I would be helpless,” and he longed to “draw close enough to God to discover His secrets.” He said that, in answer to his prayer, God inspired him how to perform his experiments that yielded the amazing benefits we all enjoy.
We may credit Carver’s strong faith to his solid home and background, but he didn’t have either. He was born a slave during the Civil War though there are no records to verify the exact date. His father died in a logging accident when he was a few weeks old and not long after, he, his mother and his sister were all kidnapped.
His former owners, a childless German couple, Moses and Sue Carver, attempted to track down and buy back these three sending a prized horse as currency. Only infant George was recovered and he had whooping cough. The others were never heard from again. Several of his siblings died in childhood and although George remained fairly sickly himself, he managed to survive and left this home when he was eleven to attend the first of several black schools.
He eventually graduated from high school and enrolled in Highland College but was turned away when they discovered his skin color. Because of his artistic abilities, he was eventually admitted to Iowa State Agricultural College as their first black student. After earning his Master’s Degree, he became their first black faculty member before later moving to Tuskegee Institute where he did most of his teaching and experimentation.
George Washington Carver accepted Jesus as his Savior when he was young and his faith grew throughout his lifetime. Because of his Jesus, he admonished his students to “Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor,” to, “Lose, if need be, without squealing,” and, “To win without bragging.” He recognized even then that Jesus provides the only power strong enough to break down the otherwise impenetrable walls of racism that he experienced firsthand.
Instead of just enjoying his peanut products, we could surely use his spiritual and social advice today in the midst of deep racial tensions. During Black History Month in particular, let us thank God for Carver’s contributions to all of our lives and realize that we are all of one race, that of Adam and Eve.
In Jesus, George