From the Missouri woods to international fame, and all the steps between are recounted with affection and genuine appreciation. As a child he was nicknamed a "plant doctor"; his many talents sent him into far places, until at last he entered. He shifted from art to agriculture, and taught later in Iowa State Agricultural University. Then he went to Tuskegee, where under Booker T. Washington he was allowed all freedom in his experimentation. From his laboratory came evolutionary discoveries of saving waste, turning things to new uses (peanuts, sweet potations, beans were among the things he worked with), making great contributions to the new science of chemurgy, and giving practical aid to his neighbors, black and white. A thinker, rather than a fighter, capable when problems of color arose, a scientist rather than a sociologist, he was not only a great man of his race, but of all mankind.

Includes index.

"Oh, Mary, don't you weep!" -- "I was young when I begun" -- "The young lambs must find the way" -- "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" -- "A long ways from home" -- "The trumpet sounds within my soul" -- "That promised land where all is peace" -- "And the walls came tumblin' down" -- "Let my people go" -- "My knees got acquainted with the hillsides too" -- "We are climbing Jacob's Ladder" -- "Way over yonder in the harvest fields" -- "Go tell it on the mountain" -- "Then why not every man?" -- "The dungeon shook and the chains fell off!" -- "I heard from Heaven today" -- "Down came the heavenly manna" -- "Go tell doubting Thomas" -- "Let us break bread together" -- "The hind wheel runs by faith" -- "To see how the end will be" -- "There is a balm in Gilead" -- Epilogue: "Coming for to carry me home" -- Bibliography -- Index.