George Washington Carver (1940)

This documentary on the eminent black scientist George Washington Carver opens with a brief history of black labor in the South. After examining some of the typical jobs of a black worker, including the tilling of soil, the cultivation of sugar and the ginning of cotton, the film focuses on Carver, who, at age seventy-six, is teaching at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. When one of his young students approaches him with questions about what he will be able to do when he graduates, Dr. Carver relates his life story as an example: As an orphaned son of a slave woman, Carver is stolen from his owner by nightriders and ransomed for a racehorse. His interest in nature makes him determined to get an education, and through all the rebuffs and disappointments, he perseveres to become an agricultural specialist. Developing a scheme to raise peanuts on idle land not used for cotton crops, he creates an industry. His discovery of the many uses of the peanut plant helps to realize a source of income for the poor sharecroppers. Through his diligent research and unselfish devotion to his people, Dr. Carver serves as an example to all his students.