After Carver had experimented with the peanut plant, he found hundreds of ways to cook and eat peanuts. He engineered a dinner party based on only peanuts and got everyone on the band wagon. Soon after that Carver locked himself in the laboratory and developed dozens of salable peanut products including peanut butter and paper. Most importantly he discovered peanut oil. Peanut oil is now used for shampoo, glue, and even dyes.
If it was not for his timely interventions, the southern farmers would have probably been made bankrupt. He was also instrumental in developing a “school on wheels” to be able to go to farming communities, to give demonstrations. He did his work selflessly, with no thought to gaining personal fortune. Also it is recognized that peanut butter has tremendous nutritional value, especially for children. George Washington Carver died as he lived, quietly in January, 1943. Who would have ever thought that this gentle genius, a negro originally called Carver’s George, would one day become George Washington Carver, B.S., M.S., D.Sc., PH.D.
At the age of 16, John left his family and went to Plainfield, Massachusetts, where he enrolled in a preparatory program. Shortly afterward, he transferred to Morris Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut. He wanted to become a Congregationalist minister, but money ran out and he suffered from eye inflammations, which forced him to give up the academy and return to Ohio. He worked briefly at his father’s tannery and then opened his own tannery outside of town. In 1820, Brown married Dianthe Lusk.
King attended a segregated public school in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen and received his B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College; a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. In June 1953 Martin married Coretta Scott and had four kids. In 1954 King became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time Rosa Parks was arrested for failure to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus.
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri, around 1864. The exact year and date of his birth are unknown. Carver went on to become one of the most prominent scientists and inventors of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one of these crops—the peanut—including dyes, plastics and gasoline. He died in 1943.
In 1959 at age 14 Bob Marley quit school. Shortly after, in the late 50’s, Bob Marley and his mother moved from their home town of St. Ann Jamaica to Trenchtown in search of better job opportunities for Cedalla. After Bob Marley moved to Trenchtown he became friends with Neville Livingston who people called, Bunny. At age 16, Bob Marley began to follow his dreams of becoming a musician. Another one of Marley’s friends, Jimmy Cliff, also a musician, introduced Marley to a producer, Leslie Kong.
Berry Gordy Jr.: The genius behind Motown. Berry Gordy was born in Detroit in 1929. His parents had migrated to the city in 1922 attracted by the job opportunities. Berry Gordy Sr.'s grandmother had been a slave in Georgia, his grandfather a slaveowner. Berry Jr. was the seventh of eight children of Bertha and Berry Sr. Love and family ruled for the large Gordy clan.
At the peak of the potato industry J.R. Simplot became a potato farmer. He learned to grow potatoes from his landlord Lindsay Maggart, whom he would soon invest in a potato sorter with. After winning a coin toss on who owned the potato sorter, Simplot began sorting potatoes for farmers himself. Within the next decade, this would make J.R. Simplot the largest potato stripper in the west, operating thirty-three warehouses in Oregon and Idaho. (Schlosser) Simplot also shipped onions.
The Rise and Fall of Malcolm X Malcolm Little later known as Malcolm X was born May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska and raised by Father Earl little and mother Louise Norton Little. Malcolm’s father, Earl Little was a Baptist Minister and civil rights activist. Malcolm’s mother, Louise was a homemaker occupied with 8 children. Earl Little’s civil rights actions led to death threats from the white supremacy group the Black Legions forcing Malcolm’s family to move twice before Malcolm’s fourth birthday. In 1931 Earl little’s body was found lying across train tracks with the back of his head smashed in.
Retail Entrepreneur Sam Walton Sam Walton was born on March 29th 1918 near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He was the oldest of two children born to the parents of Thomas and Nancy Walton. Sam Walton was raised on a farm until 1923, which then his parents decided that a farm was not a stable place to raise a family. His father decided to return to his previous occupation as a loan appraiser. The Walton family moved out of Oklahoma from town to town in Missouri for many years.