George Washington Carver Part I

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: George Washington Carver was born to slave parents during the Civil War in Diamond Grove, a small town in southwest Missouri. His birthplace boiled throughout the war in a running conflict between free soil advocates and slaveholders. Carver’s father died accidentally shortly before his birth. Cast adrift and vulnerable, the boy and his mother were kidnapped by slave raiders. Carver was sick with whooping cough and was ransomed by his owners for a horse valued at three hundred dollars. Carver’s mother was never seen again. After emancipation, the orphaned Carver and his brother were taken in by their former owners, Moses and Susan Carver, a kind, childless German couple, who raised them as their own.