Jimmy Carter is a native Georgian, born and raised in the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet of Plains near the larger town of Americus. The Carter family originated from southern England (Carter's paternal ancestor arrived in the American Colonies in 1635),[5] and
had lived in the state of Georgia for several generations; his
great-grandfather, Private L.B. Walker Carter (1832–1874), served in the Confederate States Army.
The first president born in a hospital,[6] he was the eldest of four children of James Earl Carter and Bessie Lillian Gordy. Carter's father was a prominent business owner in the community and his mother was aregistered nurse.
He was a gifted student from an early age who always had a fondness for
reading. By the time he attended Plains High School, he was also a star
in basketball. He was greatly influenced by one of his high school
teachers, Julia Coleman (1889–1973). While he was in high school he was
in the Future Farmers of America , which later changed its name to the National FFA Organization , serving as the Plains FFA Chapter Secretary.[7]
After high school, Carter enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College, in Americus. He would later apply to theUnited States Naval Academy and, after taking additional mathematics courses at Georgia Tech, he was admitted in 1943. Carter graduated 59th out of 820 midshipmen.[8]
Carter had three younger siblings: his brother, William Alton "Billy" Carter (1937–1988), and sisters Gloria Carter Spann (1926–1990) and Ruth Carter Stapleton (1929–1983). During Carter's Presidency, his brother Billy was often in the news, often in an unflattering light.
He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946. They had four children: John William "Jack" Carter (born 1947); James Earl "Chip" Carter III(born 1950); Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter, (born 1952) and Amy Lynn Carter (born 1967).
He is a cousin of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. on his mother's side, and a cousin of the late June Carter Cash [9].
Naval career
Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program run by then Captain Hyman G. Rickover.
Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter
later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest
influence on him.
Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations.
Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since
he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines.
During service on the diesel-electric submarineUSS Pomfret, Carter was almost washed overboard.[10] After six years of military service, Carter trained for the position of engineering officer in submarine USS Seawolf, then under construction.[11] Carter completed a non-credit introductory course in nuclear reactor power at Union College starting
in March 1953. This followed Carter's first-hand experience as part of a
group of American and Canadian servicemen who took part in cleaning up
after a partial nuclear meltdown at Canada's Chalk River Laboratories reactor in 1952.[12][13]
Upon the death of his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.[14][15] This cut short his nuclear powerplant operator training, and he was never able to serve on a nuclear submarine, since the first boat of that fleet, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched on January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.[16]
Farming and teachings
After his naval
service, Carter then took over and expanded his family business in
Plains. There he was involved in a peanut farming accident that left him
with a permanently bent finger. His farming business was successful,
and during the 1970 gubernatorial campaign, he was considered a wealthy peanut farmer.[17]
From a young age, Carter showed a deep commitment to Christianity, serving as a Sunday School teacher throughout his life. Even as President, Carter prayed several times a day, and professed that Jesus Christ was
the driving force in his life. Carter had been greatly influenced by a
sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for
being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"[18]
Early political career
State Senate
Jimmy Carter
started his career by serving on various local boards, governing such
entities as the schools, hospitals, and libraries, among others. In the
1960s, he served two terms in the Georgia Senate from the fourteenth district of Georgia.
His 1961 election to the state Senate, which followed the end of Georgia's County Unit System (per the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders), was chronicled in his book Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. The election involved corruption led by Joe Hurst, the sheriff of Quitman County;
system abuses included votes from deceased persons and tallies filled
with people who supposedly voted in alphabetical order. It took a
challenge of the fraudulent results for Carter to win the election.
Carter was reelected in 1964, to serve a second two-year term.
For a time in State Senate he chaired its Education Committee.[19]
In 1966, Carter
declined running for re-election as a state senator to pursue a
gubernatorial run. His first cousin, Hugh Carter, was elected as a
Democrat and took over his seat in the Senate.
Campaigns for Governor
In 1966, during the end of his career as a state senator, he flirted with the idea of running for the United States House of Representatives.
His Republican opponent dropped out and decided to run for Governor of
Georgia. Carter did not want to see a Republican Governor of his state,
and, in turn, dropped out of the race for Congress and joined the race
to become Governor. Carter lost the Democratic primary, but drew enough
votes as a third place candidate to force the favorite, Ellis Arnall, into arunoff election, setting off a chain of events which resulted in the election of Lester Maddox. During this race Carter ran as a moderate alternative to both liberal Arnall and conservative Maddox.[19] Although he lost, his strong third place finish was viewed as a success for a little-known state senator.[19]
For the next
four years, Carter returned to his agriculture business and carefully
planned for his next campaign for Governor in 1970, making over 1,800
speeches throughout the state.
During his 1970 campaign, he ran an uphill populist campaign in the Democratic primary against former Governor Carl Sanders, labeling his opponent "Cufflinks Carl". Carter was never a segregationist, and refused to join the segregationist White Citizens' Council,
prompting a boycott of his peanut warehouse. He also had been one of
only two families which voted to admit blacks to the Plains Baptist
Church.[20] However, he "said things the segregationists wanted to hear", according to historian E. Stanly Godbold.[21] Also, Carter's campaign aides handed out a photograph of his opponent celebrating with black basketball players.[22][23] Following his close victory over Sanders in the primary, he was elected Governor over Republican Hal Suit.
Governor of Georgia
Carter was sworn
in as the 76th Governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971 and held this
post for one term, until January 14, 1975. Governors of Georgia were not
allowed to succeed themselves at the time. His predecessor as Governor, Lester Maddox, became the Lieutenant Governor.
However, Carter and Maddox found little common ground during their four
years of service, often publicly feuding with each other.[24][25]
Civil rights politics
Carter declared
in his inaugural speech that the time of racial segregation was over,
and that racial discrimination had no place in the future of the state.
He was the first statewide office holder in the Deep South to say this in public.[26] Afterwards, Carter appointed many African Americans to
statewide boards and offices. He was often called one of the "New
Southern Governors" – much more moderate than their predecessors, and
supportive of racial desegregation and expanding African-Americans'
rights.
Abortion
Although "personally opposed" to abortion, subsequent to the landmark US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973) Carter supported legalized abortion.[27] He did not support increased federal funding for abortion services as president and was criticized by the ACLU for not doing enough to find alternatives to abortion.[28]
State government reforms
Carter improved
government efficiency by merging about 300 state agencies into 30
agencies. One of his aides recalled that Governor Carter "was right
there with us, working just as hard, digging just as deep into every
little problem. It was his program and he worked on it as hard as
anybody, and the final product was distinctly his." He also pushed
reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in
the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, set up community centers for
mentally handicapped children, and increased educational programs for
convicts. Carter took pride in a program he introduced for the
appointment of judges and state government officials. Under this
program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than
political influence.[29][30]
Vice-Presidential aspirations in 1972
In 1972, as US Senator George McGovern of South Dakota was marching toward the Democratic nomination for President, Carter called a news conference in Atlanta to
warn that McGovern was unelectable. Carter criticized McGovern as too
liberal on both foreign and domestic policy, yet when McGovern's
nomination became a foregone conclusion, Carter lobbied to become his
vice-presidential running mate.
During the 1972 Democratic National Convention he endorsed the candidacy of Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington.[31] However, Carter received 30 votes at theDemocratic National Convention in the chaotic ballot for Vice President. McGovern offered the second spot to Reubin Askew, from next door Florida and one of the "new southern governors", but he declined.
Death penalty and crime
After the US Supreme Court overturned Georgia's death penalty law in 1972, Carter quickly proposed state legislation to replace the death penalty with life in prison (an option which previously didn't exist).[32]
When the legislature passed a new death penalty statute, Carter, despite voicing reservations about its constitutionality[33], signed new legislation on March 28, 1973[34]to
authorize the death penalty for murder, rape and other offenses, and to
implement trial procedures which would conform to the newly-announced
constitutional requirements. In 1976, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's
new death penalty for murder; in the case of Coker v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as applied to rape.
Many in America were outraged by William Calley's life sentence at Fort Benning for his role in the My Lai Massacre;
Carter instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to
drive for a week with their lights on in support of Calley.[35] Indiana's
governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley,
and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict.[35]
Despite his
earlier support, Carter soon became a death penalty opponent, and during
Presidential campaigns (like previous nominee George McGovern and two
successive nominees, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis), this was noted.[36] Currently, Carter is known for his outspoken opposition to the death penalty in all forms; in his Nobel Prize lecture, he urged "prohibition of the death penalty".[37]
United States Senate appointment
Richard Russell, Jr., then-President pro tempore of the United States Senate, died in office on January 21, 1971. Carter, only nine days into his governorship, appointed state Democratic Party chair David H. Gambrell to fill an unexpired Russell term in the Senate on February 1.[38] Gambrell was defeated in the next Democratic primaryby the more conservative Sam Nunn.
Other activities
In 1973, while Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a report on his 1969 UFO sighting with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.[39][40][41] However,
in 2007, Carter stated that he did not remember why he filed the report
and that he believes he probably only did it at the request of one of
his children. He also stated he does not believe it was an alien
spacecraft, but rather believes it was likely some sort of military
experiment being conducted from a nearby military base.[42]
Carter made an appearance as the first guest of the evening on an episode of the game show What's My Line in 1974, signing in as "X", lest his name give away his occupation. After his job was identified on question seven of ten by Gene Shalit, he talked about having brought movie production to the state of Georgia, citingDeliverance, and the then-unreleased The Longest Yard.
In 1974, Carter was chairman of the Democratic National Committee's congressional, as well as gubernatorial, campaigns.
1976 presidential campaign
When Carter
entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was
considered to have little chance against nationally better-known
politicians. He had aname recognition of
only two percent. When he told his family of his intention to run for
President, his mother asked, "President of what?" However, the Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters' minds, and so his position as an outsider, distant from Washington, D.C., became an asset. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization.