A Chinese proverb says, "Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes." One great soul, George Washington Carver said, ". . . It has always been the one great ideal of my life . . . to be of the greatest good to the greatest number of my people."
Carver was born of slave parents in the 1860's on a plantation in Missouri. Carver taught himself to read. Although he won a scholarship to attend Highland University, when he showed up for school, Highland refused Carver admission because he was black. This set-back did not stop Carver from furthering his educating.
Another black man, Booker Taliaferro Washington, saw the bounteous ability in Carver who had been doing research at Iowa Agricultural College after 1891.
Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, sent Carver a letter in 1896 asking Carver to work at the Tuskegee Institute as the head of its Agriculture Department. Susan Altman writes in her book, Extraordinary Black Americans From Colonial To Contemporary Times, "At Tuskegee, Carver developed a system of crop rotation. He planted a legume crop (such as peanuts, which replenish minerals in the soil) one year, followed by a crop of cotton the next year. Its purpose was to keep the soil rich and improve the harvest. This system became so successful that an oversupply of peanuts resulted. Carver responded by coming up with more than two dozen uses for them. Soon, farmers were making more money raising peanuts than harvesting cotton."
"Whatever you are, be a good one," said former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, encouraging border states to outlaw slavery, helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which finally freed all the slaves nationwide in December 1865, led the United States through the American Civil War preserving the Union and battled periods of depression. In addition to his crop-rotation system Carver invented more than 300 products from the peanut and more than 100 products from the sweet potato.
Carver received job offers from famous and accomplished people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford says Altman. Carver rejected these offers. Some may have told Carver something like, "Estas loco!" (You are crazy!)."
Money was not the primary motivator of Carver's life. Carver is a Christian who was committed to God and the advancement of people, especially African Americans.
Carver worked 47 years for Washington, who was freed from African-American slavery as a boy and rose to becoming an educator, speaker, author and to the top of African-American leadership during Jim Crow segregation.
"Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible," said Carver.
"The mind of the prudent is ever getting knowledge, and the ear of the wise is ever seeking (inquiring for and craving) knowledge," says Proverbs 18:15 Amplified Bible.
Carver prized and practiced seeking and sharing education all his life. God makes each person unique. Everyone has something to share. Romans 12:13 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Share what you have with God’s people, and practice hospitality."
Showing posts with label Jim Crow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Crow. Show all posts
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Multiplication
"Sadly, many people don't really know true love--that is, God's love for them. I'm talking about a real revelation of His unwavering, unconditional love. This may be an underlying cause of many problems in relationships today. Quite honestly, many people just don't like themselves, and it's mainly due to the lack of a revelation that God, the Creator of the universe, is absolutely crazy about them," writes International Bible Teacher Joyce Meyer in her February 2013 Enjoying Everyday Life magazine.
Booker Taliaferro Washington liked himself even as a boy. People who like themselves seek to improve themselves and other people. Shortly after Washington was freed from African-American slavery as a boy, he was forced into the slavery of child labor. Sometimes he had to go to work starting at 4 a.m. in salt mines and working throughout the day. He also later in his childhood had to work in coal mines. Nevertheless, Washington and his mother schemed together for ways to send him to night school and to home school him. Washington taught himself the English alphabet.
While liking himself, it took some time to get over envy of others who were born into lives with more opportunities. Washington, an educator, speaker, author and Civil Rights Leader who was born into slavery and rose to the top of African-American leadership during Jim Crow segregation, writes in his book, Up From Slavery, about his boyhood, "In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race."
Besides his mother, a multiplicity of people helped Washington to overcome the obstacles of being born into slavery. God never meant for us to live lives of isolation. Proverbs 18:1 Amplified Bible says, "He who willfully separates and estranges himself [from God and man] seeks his own desire and pretext to break out against all wise and sound judgment."
Self-centeredness is stupid and Satanic.
Jesus Christ talks to God the Father shortly before Christ is going to be crucified, killed and resurrected in three days from the dead. One of the things Christ asks God the Father for is that all believers may be one as Christ and the Father are one.
The Complete Jewish Bible says in Psalm 133:1, "Oh, how good, how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in harmony."
Francis Chan writes in his book, multiply disciples making disciples, "Jesus prayed that we would be united. Why? So that the world would believe that Jesus was sent by God, and so that the world would know that God loves us. Isn't it amazing that Jesus believed that the unity of His church would communicate all of this to the world? So often we assume that having right and logical arguments will be enough, but Jesus said the world will be convinced by our unity. And when you think about it, haven't we all heard the objections from unbelievers who point to divisions in the church as a cause for their disbelief?
... Jesus prayed for our unity, which means that we have to focus on loving and serving each other. But we need to be doing this in such a way that the world can see what we are doing and recognize it as a picture of unity."
Let's live in advocacy without atrocity. While there is plenty we will not agree on, disagreement does not give us permission to mistreat people.
Try to understand people. Ask God for revelation about why someone is sinning.
Everyone is a candidate from coming into relationship with Christ. Don't write-off anyone. Naomi Zacharias writes in her book, the scent of water grace for every kind of broken, about women who appear to be choosing prostitution, "Someone's willingness to subject herself to something has never made a harmful act any less exploitive (sic) or relieved the offender of responsibility. If this were so, then neither should we intervene on behalf of the abused wife who chooses to endure beatings or the laborer who willingly goes to work in the sweatshop because he needs an income in order to eat."
The answer for everything in life is God. He knows how to change us, so that we can get along with people and do other good things. Jennifer Salinas sings, "Ven A Cristo" ("Come to Christ;") He is "Incomparable" (Incomparable).
Booker Taliaferro Washington liked himself even as a boy. People who like themselves seek to improve themselves and other people. Shortly after Washington was freed from African-American slavery as a boy, he was forced into the slavery of child labor. Sometimes he had to go to work starting at 4 a.m. in salt mines and working throughout the day. He also later in his childhood had to work in coal mines. Nevertheless, Washington and his mother schemed together for ways to send him to night school and to home school him. Washington taught himself the English alphabet.
While liking himself, it took some time to get over envy of others who were born into lives with more opportunities. Washington, an educator, speaker, author and Civil Rights Leader who was born into slavery and rose to the top of African-American leadership during Jim Crow segregation, writes in his book, Up From Slavery, about his boyhood, "In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race."
Besides his mother, a multiplicity of people helped Washington to overcome the obstacles of being born into slavery. God never meant for us to live lives of isolation. Proverbs 18:1 Amplified Bible says, "He who willfully separates and estranges himself [from God and man] seeks his own desire and pretext to break out against all wise and sound judgment."
Self-centeredness is stupid and Satanic.
Jesus Christ talks to God the Father shortly before Christ is going to be crucified, killed and resurrected in three days from the dead. One of the things Christ asks God the Father for is that all believers may be one as Christ and the Father are one.
The Complete Jewish Bible says in Psalm 133:1, "Oh, how good, how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in harmony."
Francis Chan writes in his book, multiply disciples making disciples, "Jesus prayed that we would be united. Why? So that the world would believe that Jesus was sent by God, and so that the world would know that God loves us. Isn't it amazing that Jesus believed that the unity of His church would communicate all of this to the world? So often we assume that having right and logical arguments will be enough, but Jesus said the world will be convinced by our unity. And when you think about it, haven't we all heard the objections from unbelievers who point to divisions in the church as a cause for their disbelief?
... Jesus prayed for our unity, which means that we have to focus on loving and serving each other. But we need to be doing this in such a way that the world can see what we are doing and recognize it as a picture of unity."
Let's live in advocacy without atrocity. While there is plenty we will not agree on, disagreement does not give us permission to mistreat people.
Try to understand people. Ask God for revelation about why someone is sinning.
Everyone is a candidate from coming into relationship with Christ. Don't write-off anyone. Naomi Zacharias writes in her book, the scent of water grace for every kind of broken, about women who appear to be choosing prostitution, "Someone's willingness to subject herself to something has never made a harmful act any less exploitive (sic) or relieved the offender of responsibility. If this were so, then neither should we intervene on behalf of the abused wife who chooses to endure beatings or the laborer who willingly goes to work in the sweatshop because he needs an income in order to eat."
The answer for everything in life is God. He knows how to change us, so that we can get along with people and do other good things. Jennifer Salinas sings, "Ven A Cristo" ("Come to Christ;") He is "Incomparable" (Incomparable).
Thursday, January 17, 2013
True Self, Child-of-God Self
". . . But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves . . . " -- John 1:9-13 The Message.
As teenagers we all are discovering our identity. At age 15 when Constance Baker Motley was discovering her identity, she was told to get off a public beach in Connecticut because she was black.
Instead of internalizing the shame, God caused Motley to develop her true self, her child-of-God self. God used this experience to make Motley aware of the inequality in America among blacks and whites. Instead of accepting the status quo of discrimination, Motley decided to be a mover and shaker for justice. She sought to gain knowledge about the black struggle for equality in America not only from this experience but also through her family and her Episcopalian church.
Motley went on to extinguish much of Jim Crow, racism and sexism. She became a key member of the team that won the civil rights case Brown v. School Board of Topeka, Kansas et al in 1954. The US Supreme Court decided this case by doing away with "separate but equal" education for blacks and others and declared segregated schooling unconstitutional. It was Motley who drafted the original complaint which was successfully argued by Thurgood Marshall.
As counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Motley won nine out of 10 civil rights cases she litigated before the US Supreme Court and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief legal advisers.
Motley was also the first black woman to become a US federal judge. She was the first black woman to be elected to the New York state senate. Motley was the first woman of any race to become president of one of the five boroughs that make up New York City, in her case Manhattan.
Seek God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost, the three that are only one, for your true self, your child-of-God self. Society is suffering. We need everyone to be their true self, their child-of-God self to bring the kingdom of God from heaven to earth. Talk to God.
Father God in the Precious Name of My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Empowered by the Holy Ghost, in all ways change me into my true self, my child-of-God self. Prevent fear, shame and any bad behavior from stopping me from being all that you created me to be.
As teenagers we all are discovering our identity. At age 15 when Constance Baker Motley was discovering her identity, she was told to get off a public beach in Connecticut because she was black.
Instead of internalizing the shame, God caused Motley to develop her true self, her child-of-God self. God used this experience to make Motley aware of the inequality in America among blacks and whites. Instead of accepting the status quo of discrimination, Motley decided to be a mover and shaker for justice. She sought to gain knowledge about the black struggle for equality in America not only from this experience but also through her family and her Episcopalian church.
Motley went on to extinguish much of Jim Crow, racism and sexism. She became a key member of the team that won the civil rights case Brown v. School Board of Topeka, Kansas et al in 1954. The US Supreme Court decided this case by doing away with "separate but equal" education for blacks and others and declared segregated schooling unconstitutional. It was Motley who drafted the original complaint which was successfully argued by Thurgood Marshall.
As counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Motley won nine out of 10 civil rights cases she litigated before the US Supreme Court and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief legal advisers.
Motley was also the first black woman to become a US federal judge. She was the first black woman to be elected to the New York state senate. Motley was the first woman of any race to become president of one of the five boroughs that make up New York City, in her case Manhattan.
Seek God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost, the three that are only one, for your true self, your child-of-God self. Society is suffering. We need everyone to be their true self, their child-of-God self to bring the kingdom of God from heaven to earth. Talk to God.
Father God in the Precious Name of My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Empowered by the Holy Ghost, in all ways change me into my true self, my child-of-God self. Prevent fear, shame and any bad behavior from stopping me from being all that you created me to be.
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