Jimmy Carter's Academic and Early Career: From Plains to the Presidency
Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States, had a multifaceted academic and early career that laid the foundation for his eventual rise to national prominence. Born James Earl Carter, Jr., on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, his journey encompassed military service, agricultural entrepreneurship, and a gradual entry into the political arena.
Early Life and Education
Carter's roots were deeply embedded in the rural South. His parents, Earl and Lillian Carter, owned a peanut farm, a warehouse, and a store outside Plains. Although the Carter family home lacked both electricity and running water, they were one of the more prosperous families in the community. He was educated in the Plains public schools. Even as a young boy, Jimmy stacked produce from the family farm onto a wagon, hauled it into town, and sold it. He saved his money, and by the age of thirteen, bought five houses around Plains that the Great Depression had put on the market at rock-bottom prices. These homes were rented to families in the area.
Inspired by his Uncle Tom Gordy’s trips around the world in the Navy, Carter wrote to the Naval Academy to request their catalog before he even started high school. He attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Naval Academy and Service
The events of World War II motivated many American patriots like Carter to enter the military service. There was stiff competition for getting into Annapolis, and Carter flung himself into college coursework at Georgia Institute of Technology to enhance his prospects for earning admission to the Naval Academy. He was admitted to Annapolis in 1943 and graduated in the top ten percent of his class in August 1946, just after the end of the war. He received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 and was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy.
Carter's naval career began with service on conventional submarines in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. He later joined the Navy’s pioneering nuclear submarine program. Lieutenant Carter selected the submarine service, the Navy's most hazardous duty. One incident during this time clearly illustrated Carter's values and beliefs. While his submarine was moored in the Bahamas, British officials extended a party invitation to white crew members only. Partly at Carter's urgings, everyone on the submarine refused to attend.
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About this time, the Navy was attempting to construct its first nuclear-powered submarines. The program was headed by the brilliant, tough Captain Hyman Rickover. Today regarded as "the father of the nuclear Navy," Rickover was slight, intense, and a demanding taskmaster. Carter was assigned to Rickover's research team, and the uncompromising captain pushed the young lieutenant mercilessly. "I think, second to my own father, Rickover had more effect on my life than any other man," Carter would later say. One of the two new submarines being built was the Seawolf, and Carter taught nuclear engineering to its handpicked crew. He rose to the rank of lieutenant.
In 1952, when there was a nuclear reactor accident at a Canadian research facility, Carter led a team of Americans who provided expertise and assistance to the Canadians responding to the accident. Carter and other members of his team were exposed to high levels of radiation when they took turns spending a few minutes in the contaminated facility taking steps to shut down and secure the reactor.
Return to Plains and Business Ventures
Carter’s naval career was flourishing when bad news came from Plains. Carter's father Earl had cancer, and in July 1953, he died. The farm had declined in his last years, and there was real danger that it would now be lost, a crushing prospect to Lillian Carter. After some hard thought, Jimmy decided to resign from the Navy, return to Plains, and take charge of the family enterprises. On October 9, 1953, Carter was honorably discharged, and per his request, he was transferred to the retired reserve as a Lieutenant on December 7, 1961.
He took over the Carter farms, and he and Rosalynn operated Carter’s Warehouse in Plains, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company. Carter threw himself into farming the way he had his naval duties. But the return to Plains became the greatest crisis of the Carter marriage. Rosalynn, deeply opposed to giving up the travel and financial security of military life, found it a difficult adjustment. The year 1954 saw a terrible drought in Georgia, and net profits from the farm totaled just $187. Hard work and effective management made the Carter farm prosperous by 1959.
Early Political Career
Carter quickly became a leader of the community, serving on county boards supervising education, the hospital authority, and the library. He was elected chairman of the Sumter County school board and then first president of the Georgia Planning Association. Jimmy Carter's involvement in his local community increased as he began to serve on local boards for civic entities like hospitals and libraries. He also became a church deacon and Sunday school teacher at the Plains Baptist Church. In 1955, he successfully ran for office for the first time-a seat on Sumter County Board of Education, eventually becoming its chairman.
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At the time, Georgia, like the rest of the South, was wracked with controversy over school desegregation. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate. When a new seat in the Georgia State Senate opened up because of federally ordered reapportionment in 1962, Carter entered that race. Initially defeated in the Democratic primary, he was able to prove that his opponent's victory was based on widespread vote fraud in Quitman County. A judge threw out the fraudulent votes, and Carter won the election. Carter tells the story of his controversial campaign in his book, Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age (1992).
During his two terms in the state senate, Carter earned a reputation as a tough, independent operator. He promised to read every bill before he cast a vote and kept that promise with long hours of tedious reading. He attacked wasteful government practices and supported an effort to repeal laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting. Consistent with his past practice and his deeply held principles, when a vote was held in his church to decide on whether to allow blacks to worship there, the vote was nearly unanimous against integration. Of the three dissenting votes, two were cast by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.
Gubernatorial Ambitions
In 1966, Carter planned to run for the US Congress. However, when a Republican rival announced his candidacy for governor of Georgia, Carter decided to challenge him. Although Carter campaigned hard, he finished third in the 1966 Democratic primary. The civil rights movement had created a conservative backlash in the South, ending the solidly Democratic stranglehold on the region. Liberal and moderate Democrats were increasingly vulnerable. The eventual winner was Lester Maddox, an ultraconservative who proudly refused to allow blacks to enter a restaurant he owned by standing in the doorway holding an ax.
Carter was bitterly disappointed by his defeat and was saddled with a substantial debt from it. He spent time after the election reexamining his life and faith, spending time on missionary work in Georgia, Mexico City, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Thereafter, observers would describe Carter as a born-again Christian. His political ambitions were also revived, and he began to position himself for the 1970 gubernatorial election. In the late 1960s, Carter traveled and campaigned tirelessly throughout the state.
He ran as a moderate calling for an end to busing as a means to overcome segregation in public schools. He criticized state officials for withdrawing an invitation to George Wallace to speak at the state capital and sought the endorsement of several avowed segregationists. The leading newspaper in the state, The Atlanta Constitution, refused to endorse him, and described Carter as an "ignorant, racist, backward, ultra-conservative, red-necked South Georgia peanut farmer." Carter’s primary opponent, Carl Sanders, was a former governor, lawyer, and businessman with close connections to the Atlanta political establishment and ample campaign funding. Carter referred to Sanders as “cufflinks Carl” and produced posters of himself dressed in simple farmer overalls. The strategy worked, and with the support of rural voters, born-again Christians, and some segregationists, Carter forced a runoff election and then defeated Sanders.
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Governorship of Georgia
He won the next election, becoming Georgia’s 76th governor on January 12, 1971. The new governor's inaugural address surprised many Georgians by calling for an end to segregation, and Carter received national attention for it. By and large, Carter governed as a progressive and reformer. During his term, he increased the number of African American staff members in Georgia's government by 25 percent. But his primary concern was the state's outdated, wasteful government bureaucracy. Three hundred state agencies were channeled into two dozen "superagencies." He promoted environmental protection and greater funding for schools. However, he worked poorly with traditional Democratic politicians and gained a reputation with some legislators as an arrogant governor, with a "holier than thou" attitude that isolated him from those who might otherwise have been political allies.
Presidential Aspirations
While Carter was serving as governor, he was taking careful measure of the national political landscape. The Democratic presidential candidate in 1972 was George McGovern, a liberal who steadfastly opposed the war in Vietnam. Carter watched McGovern run an impracticable campaign, in which he was portrayed by his opponents as a radical extremist. The Democratic candidate suffered an overwhelming defeat at the hands of Republican incumbent, Richard Nixon.
On December 12, 1974, he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Jimmy Carter served as president from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981.
Post-Presidency and Continued Engagement
In 1982, he became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded The Carter Center. Actively guided by President Carter, the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center addresses national and international issues of public policy. Carter Center fellows, associates, and staff join with President Carter in efforts to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions.
President Carter and The Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994), Sudan (1995), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), and Venezuela (2002-2003). Under his leadership The Carter Center has sent forty-five international electionmonitoring delegations to elections in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
The permanent facilities of The Carter Presidential Center were dedicated in October 1986 and include the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, administered by the National Archives. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter volunteer one week a year for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that helps needy people in the United States and in other countries renovate and build homes for themselves. He also teaches Sunday school and is a deacon in the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains. For recreation, he enjoys fly-fishing, woodworking, jogging, cycling, tennis, and skiing.
President Carter is the author of seventeen books, many of which are now in revised editions: Why Not the Best? 1975, 1996; A Government as Good as Its People, 1977, 1996; Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, 1982, 1995; Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility, 1984; The Blood of Abraham, 1985, 1993; Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life, written with Rosalynn Carter, 1987, 1995; An Outdoor Journal, 1988, 1994; Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age, 1992, Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation, 1993, 1995; Always a Reckoning, 1995; The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, illustrated by Amy Carter, 1995; Living Faith, 1996; Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith, 1997; The Virtues of Aging, 1998; An Hour before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood, 2001; Christmas in Plains: Memories, 2001; and The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 2002.
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