Ancestor Gratitude
We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
“Nothing the future brings can defeat a people who have come through three hundred years of slavery and humiliation and privation with heads high and eyes clear and straight.”–Paul Robeson
George Washington Carver transitioned to ancestor the year before my father graduated from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) and enlisted in the Army to serve in WWII. Dad had been Tuskegee’s senior class president.
Years later, my father, a veteran, husband and father of four, remembered the great scientist as his inspiration and hero.
“Carver’s words have made a big difference in my life,” my father reminded the sibs and me often, “After you memorize my favorite Carver quote, I want you to repeat it each morning of your life.”
We promised.
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.” –George Washington Carver
This week, I’m sharing more wise words from several books lining the ancestor shelf in my Great Migration Library.
Family Writers
From A Letter to Young Black Men: You won’t find role models on street corners by Eliot Battle.
“As a teenager, in addition to school work, I sold candy and magazines, I worked as a busboy in a hotel restaurant, I worked as a sandblaster at an Air Force base, and as an operator of a blueprint photostat machine for a privately owned business. During my first year in college, I lived in a private room in the horse barn at Tuskegee University. My job that year was cleaning the stalls and cur-combing and brushing the horses. During my additional years there, I worked as a student guide for visitors to the campus. This was a super experience for me. It afforded me the opportunity to meet, among others, Lena Horne and Joe Louis when they visited Tuskegee. One of my greatest experiences while a student at Tuskegee was the opportunity to visit with Dr. George Washington Carver, who at that time was working at the Carver Museum. It was exciting to see him at work and to converse with him—a man could study and reach the heights he attained, and yet remain humble. I am a proud Black man. I am proud of my heritage. I am proud of my personal contributions. I am proud of my wife and children and their personal accomplishments. I am proud of my grandchildren. And I am proud of the many Black men and women whom I have personally watched mature and develop into good and worthwhile people.”
From The Blighted life of Methuselah by H. Roger Williams, M.D.
“This gives hypocrites an opportunity to hope on through their wrongdoings. There are those who will lie, steal, cheat, break the commandments, and grieve the Holy Spirit in a thousand ways, and, pointing with injured innocence to some hero of the Bible who did the same things, they fold their arms in undisturbed peace and rejoice to tell you that they are on their steady march to heaven and its immortal glory.”–Dr. Henry Roger Williams (1869-1929).
From An Emancipation Poem by H. Roger Williams, M.D.
"And as eagles loosed from prison
Plume their wings and upward rise;
So, when slavery's chains were broke.
We ascended toward the skies.
And by thrift and education, And abiding faith in God;
We have entered all vocations such human feet have trod."
From On My Own by Charles Davis; Cousins: Charles, Donna, Clarice (circa 2010).
“One lesson I learned in the army was that racial discrimination is not found only in civilian life… there was plenty of prejudice just the same. During basic training, I had taken a test that qualified me for Officer Candidate School. But to get in, 1 had to pass an interview with a white southern colonel… I went in for the interview, and he asked me a lot of questions about my background and job experience…During the whole interview, he kept looking at the papers on his desk. He seemed to be talking to them, not to me…He acted as if he were wasting his precious time talking to a Black man who didn't know his place. I knew then and there that he wasn't going to send me to Officer Candidate School. Things were the same in New Guinea and later in Japan.” –Charles Davis (1922-2016).
From Shape Them Into Dreams by Ariel Williams Holloway. (Aunt Ariel and Zora Neale Hurston were buddies.)
Glory
They stood, these two,
Against a mammoth wall
So high
That neither could surmount it.
One brother stooped,
And on his back the other stood
And scaled the wall.
Men seeing him atop
Acclaimed him great.
They never saw his brother
Who lay prostrate
On the other side.
“Our history is full of people who, amidst personal pain, fear, frustration, and injustice, harnessed the power of their vulnerability by transforming private struggle into public strength. They took risks, spoke out, and elevated the stories of others. And in doing so, they create movements that politicians and others could not ignore.”–Cory Booker
This Week’s Great Migration Library Q & A:
This week’s Question: What tool was Dad using when he describes cur-combing horses at Tuskegee?
Answer to last week’s 2-part Question: HBCU is an acronym for which institutions? Lawrence Winters graduated from which HBCU? Answer: Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Lawrence Winters graduated from Howard University in 1944.
Thank you for joining me in the Great Migration Library. The doors are always open. Your chair is waiting.
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Reader Reminders:
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Great Migration Library website
The Great Migration Library’s highlighted links often connect you to more information, books at AbeBooks, or other independent booksellers, available at the time of our posting. Note: Before selecting from a link, sort through available offerings for desired condition; new or used.
Great Migration Library Bookmarks
George Washington Carver: In His Own Words edited by Gary Kremer (University of Missouri Press, 1991).
The Blighted Life of Methuselah by H. Roger Williams, MD (National Baptist Publishing Board, 1908).
My Folks Don’t Want Me To Talk About Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in North Carolina edited by Belinda Hurmence (Blair, 1984).
Shape Them into Dreams by Ariel Williams Holloway (Exposition Press, 1955).
On My Own by Charles Davis (Children’s Press\Open Door, 1970).
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown (Convergent Books, 2018).
Stand by Cory Booker (St. Martin’s Press, 2026).
Contact me for permission to reprint Great Migration Library photos, or photos from the Battle Family Archives.
Please note: I often reference Wikipedia.com as a second source for dates, locations and other information.
Join the Book Search
Please join in my continued search for information regarding From the Plantation to the Doctor’s Office by Dr. H. Roger Williams, published in the mid-1920s. Contact this great-granddaughter with any tips (from libraries, media archives, elders and more — including psychic readers).
© 2026 Donna Battle Pierce and Great-Migrations.com. All photo rights reserved by Battle Family Archives.