Today In Black LGBTQ+ History: GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

TODAY IN BLACK LGBTQ+ HISTORY, we celebrate George Washington Carver, who's scientific achievements challenged racial stereotypes, eventually making him the most famous African American of all time. Business leaders like Henry Ford came to seek his advice, as well as American presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt. Though his renown helped to raise the profile of Tuskegee (along with desperately needed funds) administrators worried about potential scandal from the persistent rumors that he was gay – especially after 1935 when Carver became life partners with fellow researcher Austin W. Curtis, Jr. – a relationship which endured until Carver’s death in 1943. Curtis, who inherited much of Carver’s estate, continued his work despite being summarily banished from Tuskegee once Carver was gone.