Today is George Washington Carver Day in Iowa, and a Des Moines attorney will portray the world-famous agricultural scientist at their shared alma mater of Iowa State University.
Paxton Williams (Photo provided by ISU)
When he was an honors student at ISU, Paxton Williams wrote a one-man show about Carver, and has since performed as Carver hundreds of times across the United States and in several other countries.
“I like to invite folks just to have a visit with Carver,” Williams says. “We will just be visiting with him in his office and he’s going to be telling a few stories, about his life, talking about his upbringing, talking about some of the challenges he faced, his discoveries, his inventions.”
As part of ISU’s second annual Carver Day celebration, Williams will tell Carver’s story at 5:30 PM in the Durham Great Hall of the Memorial Union. The ISU Museums also has three George Washington Carver exhibitions opening today.
Williams says it’s important to keep Carver’s story and legacy alive and relevant for new generations.
“Today, it’s difficult to understand his impact, what he was able to do, how he was able to do it, his influence,” Williams says. “I think it’s just a good reminder that people like Carver existed — and exist — and all the people who encouraged him, and who inspired him, and who assisted him, they existed, too. I think there’s just lots of great lessons in this story for us all.”
In 1891, Carver became ISU’s first black student and a few years later, he became the campus’ first black faculty member. Carver is credited with introducing improved farming systems and he developed hundreds of food products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and other plants.
In his portrayal of Carver, Williams says he’ll dress the part. “There’s video of him, there’s recordings of him,” Williams says. “He appeared on a number of radio programs in his lifetime. He was interviewed a fair amount, so yeah, we know what he looked like, we know how he walked, how he sounded.”
Williams has served as executive director of the George Washington Carver Birthplace Association in Diamond, Missouri. He also served as associate producer for an Iowa PBS documentary on Carver and was the content expert on a National Geographic Reader Series book on Carver.
In 2022, the Iowa Legislature voted to establish February 1st as an Official Day of Recognition in honor of Carver.