In memoriam: Jimmy Carter, our 39th president

“The people of this country want a fresh face not associated with a long series of mistakes made at the White House and on Capitol Hill.” Those are the words of a presidential candidate who was seen as an outsider and business owner that could take on the insiders of the Washington, D.C. political machine.

Is it Donald Trump? No. Robert Kennedy Jr? No. It was Jimmy Carter. Yes, the long shot with the genteel smile who charmed his way into the White House and, following a long legacy of championing human rights issues around the world, passed away Dec. 29 at the age of 100, the longest living former president in history.

His litany of promoting social causes in America and throughout the globe will live on even longer, but it was a rise to national and international power that was made possible by the people of the state of Iowa.

James Earl Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924 at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia (the first President to be born in a hospital). His father ran a modest peanut farm nearby and his mother spent time as a nurse tending to patients of the small wood frame medical office where she gave birth to him.

The family struggled financially as they raised their peanut crops while living in a house with no electricity or running water. Despite these disadvantages, Carter graduated as valedictorian from his high school in 1941 and attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in hopes of fighting for his country in World War II. He finished his bachelor’s degree at the Academy in 1946, but missed action in the war, which ended in September of 1945.

Carter chose, however, to remain in the Navy, serving as an electronics and gunnery officer aboard the battleship U.S.S. Wyoming. He then requested transfer to the submarine service and was interviewed by Hyman Rickover, the father of the modern nuclear Navy, for approval to join the top secret experimental program as an engineering officer.

In 1952, Carter was assigned to the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission where he assisted in the design and development of the nuclear power systems that would be used to propel the next generation U.S.S. Seawolf submarines. A year later, though, his father would die of cancer and Carter returned home to take over the family farming operations.

Always socially conscious and an activist within his local Baptist church, the nuclear physicist turned peanut farmer ran for Georgia State Senate in 1962 as a long shot candidate. He learned a lesson in perseverance after losing the election, then filing an appeal upon the discovery of voter fraud and ultimately being declared the winner.

Four years later, Carter ran for Governor of the state of Georgia, this time losing with no allegations of major voter fraud to an accused white supremacist who refused to allow Black diners into his chain of restaurants.

Enraged that a man with a reputation as a racist could hold such high office, Carter again ran in 1970. Appealing to Black and white voters, he won by a narrow margin of 49% of the vote. Emboldened, he then began implementing and enforcing integration and parity within the government of the state.

Fighting for equality for all, he made a name for himself in the South, but was relatively unknown throughout the rest of the country.

Carter, however, wanted his moral values and sense of justice to be applied to the entire nation in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the division caused by the Vietnam War. As a result, on Dec. 12, 1974, after only a little more than three years in office as Governor, he announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

Incredulous, and startled, most of the country didn’t notice. His mother, Lillian, when informed of his decision to run for president, responded simply, “President of what?” It wouldn’t take long, nonetheless, for the rest of the electorate to find out.

Previous to that election cycle, campaigns had often been won sheerly by the businessmen who would gather in the smoky room and decided whose candidacy to fund. After the violent and contentious Democratic National Convention and subsequent election of Republican candidate Richard Nixon in 1968, Congress met and passed the Campaign Reform Act of 1972 and its amendments in 1974 that limited anonymous campaign donations to one hundred dollars and required reporting of all funds. It also established the checkoff system on tax forms to federally fund election campaigns.

Carter, realizing it would not all be about who had the most money in this election, believed that a grassroots candidate and campaign could win instead.

Adding to his optimism, Iowa had just been named the first state in the nation to hold its presidential caucus. Carter was convinced that a victory there would gain him the name recognition he needed to win in the remaining primaries and caucuses from coast to coast.

The Reform Act stated that any candidate who could raise a minimum of five thousand dollars in at least twenty states would qualify to receive the newly established federal funds. As a result, the Carter campaign began selling t-shirts and peanuts and hosting music concerts by the Allman Brothers in states across the country. The grassroots effort paid off, and, with the assistance of federal funding, Carter could concentrate on his first goal.

He arrived in Iowa in early 1975 with events in key cities and small towns. Accompanied by Rosalynn, a fellow activist and his wife of thirty years, she would hand out campaign literature while he shook hands. As he had hoped, the folksy, down home approach to the farm minded communities worked, and in one of his first exposures to widespread publicity, nationally syndicated writer William Safire wrote after a campaign appearance in Cedar Rapids that “his style is what Madison Avenue calls low key and his message is strictly middle of the road.”

The “low key” approach was effective. After the Democrats’ annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines in December 1975, at which Carter met each diner and then filled the balconies with Rosalynn seated beside them for his speech, his popularity in the polls soared.

On Jan. 19, a year later, he defeated his nearest competitor, Birch Bayh of Indiana, nearly two to one, receiving 27.6% of the vote to Bayh’s 13% in the first in the nation Presidential caucus.

The victory thrust the unlikely candidate to national stardom, just as had been planned by his campaign from the very beginning. He parlayed that success to victory in the ensuing New Hampshire primary, and with that momentum, aided by his Republican opponent Gerald Ford pardoning former President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, went on to claim the presidency with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 240 electoral votes. As Carter had hoped, Iowa was the springboard to the presidency that he had predicted.

Carter’s subsequent presidency was full of tumult and rancor as interest rates skyrocketed to record levels and gasoline shortages gripped the nation. The signing of a peace accord brokered by the White House between Israel and Egypt was a high point, but that was soon tamped by the taking of American hostages (including Kathryn Koob of Waverly,) who were held captive in Iran for much of his term. Beguiled by these setbacks, Carter lost his re-election bid by 440 electoral votes to actor and former Governor of California Ronald Reagan.

Disappointed but feeling he still had much good to do for the nation, he returned to Georgia, established the Carter Center as a charitable nonprofit organization and traveled the world bringing attention and aid to the underprivileged peoples of America and around the globe.

In 1999, Carter received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, in ceremonies presided over by then-President Bill Clinton. Since departing the White House, Carter has authored more than thirty books, mostly outlining the philosophies on which he ran for president and on his and his wife’s life before and after the White House.

In 2022, Carter was diagnosed with brain cancer after having been in remission with immunotherapy since the first detection of the disease in 2015. After his having been placed under hospice care in Georgia, Rosalynn, whose first name was actually Eleanor, passed away at the age of 96 following nearly seventy-eight years together with her husband. She was laid to rest near the family home at Plains, about 170 miles south of the nonprofit charitable organization he and she had founded in Atlanta after his presidency.

Her husband, following more than a year in hospice care and having stated his pleasure at having had the opportunity to express his political and moral values in the twilight of his life, cast what would be his final ballot in the last presidential election.

Carter joined Rosalynn in eternal spirit on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. A state funeral is planned for Jan. 9, when, after full honors, the improbable but triumphant nuclear physicist turned peanut farmer and Governor of Georgia will be laid to rest beside her at Plains, having reached his goal of serving as the 39th President of the United States and later as an honorary ambassador of goodwill around the world.

The author of this column can personally attest to his devotion to humanity and to his family, having interviewed the former President many years ago in Chicago when he spoke of his concern for the lives of those affected by violence and oppression in the Middle East. It was of special and personal importance to him as his son was a resident there at the time. Following an outbreak of bombings after which he had not heard from him, the former President’s eyes glazed over as he chatted with me, kindly reminiscing about their times together and his worries about him and his uncertain status during the moments we spoke.

The former President was gracious enough, through all of that and undoubtedly with his mind on other things, to take the time to sign a photo for me. I am proud to hold it in my historical collections, and now today, with even more meaning than ever.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.