Narrator: George planned to obtain a doctorate at Iowa State and the school wanted very much
to keep him on its faculty in what could have been a contented life of academic distinction.
Then, in 1896, a letter arrived that would change everything.
"I cannot offer you money, position or fame", it said. "The first two you have. The last,
from the place you now occupy, you will no doubt achieve. These things I now ask you
to give up. I offer you in their place work, hard, hard work, the task of bringing a people
from degradation, poverty and waste to full manhood." It was signed by Booker T. Washington,
the principal of an industrial and teacher training institute for black students in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Dr. Charlotte Morris, Interim President of Tuskegee University: We talk about the Tuskegee
experience around here and everyone, everyone talks about it but no one can just come out
and explain exactly what it is. We all know that there is something about that Tuskegee
experience that keeps you here and keeps you with the desire to want to do more. It may
be the grounds of Booker T. Washington. It may be George Washington Carver. Because those
were two great men who walked the grounds of Tuskegee and so it's an honor and a privilege
actually to come behind them and do something substantial for the university.
Narrator: Booker T. Washington was determined to make Tuskegee a leading educational institution
in the South, and his most pressing need was to establish an agriculture department. But
to establish such a department, Washington recognized that he needed a black man with
an advanced degree in agriculture. And in all the country there was only one such man,
George Washington Carver. To lure Carver to Tuskegee, Washington offered him an annual
salary of $1,000 plus living quarters. Despite Washington's warning of hard, hard work, Carver
replied to him. "It has always been one ideal of my life to be the greatest good to the
greatest number of my people possible. And to this end I have been preparing myself for
these many years, feeling as I do that this line of education is the key to unlock the
golden door of freedom to our people." He would remain there until his death 47 years later.
[music]
[Text on Screen]
“It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives,
nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply
service that measures success.” --George Washington Carver
[music]
Dyann Robinson, Founder and Director, Tuskegee Repertory Theater: Booker T. and Carver believed
that people needed to be taught not only how to live but to live beautifully and live well
and to make beautiful things out of everything that was functional. So I think that that's
important, that kind of contribution to learning that they gave and that legacy is what made
a whole two or three generations back feel that they could do anything. We had these
brilliant doctors, brilliant scholars up on campus because they had a place to be geniuses,
to show their genius in this little cocoon, some little protective sphere. And it started
with Booker T. and this school. He made a place, a space for people to excel. Carver
was part of that.