User:Studentuser65210/George Washington Carver

Carver headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system.

Carver’s background for his interest in organic farming sprouted from his father being killed during the Civil War, and when his mother was kidnapped by Confederate slave raiders. Now an orphan, Carver found comfort in botany when he was just 11 years old in Kansas. Carver learned about herbal medicine, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers that yielded plentiful crops from his caretaker. When crops and house plants were dying, he would use his knowledge and go and nurse them back to health. As a teenager, he was termed the “plant doctor”.

When his study about infection in soybean reached Booker T. Washington, he invited him to come and teach at the Tuskegee Agricultural school.

Although the emancipation allowed Black families 40 acres and a mule, President Johnson revoked this and gave the land to white plantation owners instead. This prompted Black farmers to exchange what was once their land, and in turn, a small part of the land's harvest. This led to sharecropping.

Carver soon realized that farmers were not obtaining enough food to survive, and how the industrialization of cotton had contaminated the soil. Carver wanted to find a way to organically transform Alabama's failing soil. He found that alternating nitrogen-rich crops would let the soil get back to its natural state. Keeping crops like sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas would produce more food surplus and different types of food for farmers. Carver worked to pioneer organic fertilizers like swamp muck and compost for the farmers to use. These fertilizers were more sustainable to the planet and helped farmers to spend less money on fertilizers since they were recycling products.

Carver pushed for woodland preservation, to help improve the quality of the topsoil. He urged farmers to feed their hogs acorns. The acorns contained natural pesticides and feeding them acorns was cheaper for the farms too.

Carver's efforts towards the holistic and organic approach are still in practice today. In his research, Carver discovered Permaculture. Permaculture could be used to produce carbon from the atmosphere, produce a higher quantity of crops, and let crops flourish despite global warming. President Biden realized the success of Permaculture as described by Carver, and is now using it in sustainable agriculture in his climate policy. Additionally decades later, the Rodale Institute in 1947. It was formed off the organic movement in the agriculture system that Carver has spearheaded.

Despite Carver's pertinent efforts, he still struggled with racism in the deep south. There was a letter that Carver had written when he was working to reform the lands, where he had described how he was lynched. Carver used an analogy “Old Satan” in the letter to describe who had lynched him. Carver mentions Blease, and how he was promoting a very racist environment and was extremely anti-black, and was the “Old Satan”. Blease worked in the state government, and he had the power to influence how the citizens of that state viewed black  people. He let his opinions of racism penetrate into the states, and further his racist agenda.

Feedback from instructor
This draft duplicates content already present in the article, under the section titled "peanut products." Make sure you build on what is already there without repeating.

I suggest focusing on Carver's early environmental leadership, which is not well developed in the existing article. The two sources I gave you should help with that (see me if you need them again). You may also want to add information about the hardships he suffered as an adult due to racism. Saguaro23 (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

More feedback from instructor
Please work with the campus writing center to improve this draft, as there are a number of areas where your meaning is unclear.

I think you misunderstood some of what you read about Carver, as he died well before the creation of the Black Panther Party and some of the other events that you describe him as participating in. It may be that you were reading about his legacy, after death, and how it impacted these other groups, but I'd have to take a look at the original to know for sure. Feel free to come by office hours with your sources if you need help interpreting them. Saguaro23 (talk) 22:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)