
In the late 1890s, the boll weevil began running rampant through the South, destroying cotton fields. Black sharecroppers needed a way to earn a living after King Cotton was dethroned. The Tuskegee Institute saw beekeeping as a profitable alternative to cotton.
Before the 1890s, much knowledge of Black beekeeping in the United States had either been lost over time or shared only through oral tradition. Tuskegee sought to preserve beekeeping through written education and practical instruction, adding beekeeping to its curriculum and requiring most students to learn it.
The majority of Tuskegee students were sharecroppers or former sharecroppers. Dr. George Washington Carver wanted to retrain cotton farmers as beekeepers to give them an edge.
Beekeeping became a staple of the Tuskegee Institute and a vital part of the school’s holistic approach to Black education. Dr. Carver’s belief in cultivating bees to help Black farmers established a tradition that has lasted until today.
Beekeeping was an ancestral practice that we very nearly lost. But the Tuskegee Institute saw the power in teaching beekeeping, not only to preserve the knowledge of our ancestors for our future. We must understand and cultivate a relationship between our past and the future to come.