George Washington Carver is one of the heroes of American history. His desire to learn to read and get a real education carried him through a series of great difficulties and adventures. His early morning conversations with "Mr. Creator" gave him the tenacity to finish his dream of obtaining an education. He used that to help many farmers, white and black, to escape deep poverty and survive, as they faced the dark days of the Reconstruction, a boll weevil invasion, and the Depression of 1929. He taught them how to rotate crops so they could make farming a prosperous career. Additionally, he discovered more than 300 uses for peanuts and other legumes that replaced cotton as the only cash crop some farmers knew how to plant. But his most valuable legacy was the young people he taught for decades at Tuskegee Institute.