James Earl Carter was born on October 1, 1924 in Plains, Georgia, to his father, a peanut farmer, and his mother, a registered nurse. Carter grew up riding in mule-drawn wagons for transportation and without electricity or indoor plumbing. He had a deeply religious upbringing and attended an all-white high school, but despite the segregation at the time, he had close friends who were black, as well as his nanny and his father’s worker, who would later be two of the most influential people in his life. Living in a small, rural town didn’t stop the young Carter from following current events, however, and one of his favorite activities as a child was listening to sports broadcasts and politics on the radio. The first in his family to graduate from high school, he attended a local community college before transferring to Georgia Tech, and then to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. After graduating in the top ten percent of his class, he began to work on submarines in various locations throughout the country, and he started a family with Rosalynn Carter. After the death of his father, he moved back to Georgia to care for his mother and the family farm.
The start of his career in politics came soon after the move, as he earned a seat on the County Board of Education. Notably, Carter was one of the few Southern politicians at the time to support desegregation, and he was the only man in his town to refuse to join the segregationist White Citizens’ Council. After the 1962 Supreme Court ruling of Baker v Carr, which outlawed voting districts that were drawn to benefit white voters, Carter saw his opportunity and got more involved, running for State Senate. After losing his first campaign for governor due to unpopularity among white segregationist southerners, he won the 1970 election by renouncing his previous support of civil rights and opposing integration of public schools. However, after his win, he returned to his liberal values. Observing the 1972 presidential election and the Watergate scandal that destroyed Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter decided to run for president in the 1976 election. As a political outsider who promised he would “never tell a lie” or “avoid a controversial issue,” his campaign gained support and won the Democratic nomination. Despite various gaffes, he won the 1976 election over Gerald Ford.
As president, Carter faced issues that would ultimately cause many historians to view him as a failure. He initially enjoyed widespread support, and he succeeded domestically in decreasing consumption of foreign oil and developing stores of oil and natural gas. Unfortunately, the Iranian Revolution in 1979 led to another shortage of gas, which undid his achievements. Internationally, he saw success in the mediation between Israel and Egypt in the Camp David Accords, and he suspended aid to Latin American countries because of ongoing human rights abuses. However, his negotiations to return Panama Canal to the Panamanian people made many people perceive him as weak and that he had “given away” the canal. The Iran Hostage Crisis was a major factor in decreasing his popularity, as he failed to negotiate the release of the hostages or rescue them. In a case of unfortunate timing, the hostages were released the day he left office. His famous “malaise” or “crisis of confidence” speech about the current state of the economy further hurt his image.
After leaving office, Jimmy Carter has been involved in numerous humanitarian causes, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. While he was certainly not one of America’s most effective presidents, his contributions to human rights causes around the world distinguishes him as a great social activist.
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