About Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is a former politician from the United States who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. He was a Democrat who previously served as Georgia’s 76th governor from 1971 to 1975 and as a state senator from 1963 to 1967. Carter has remained active in political and social projects since leaving office, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work.
On October 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. was born at the Wise Sanitarium (now the Lillian G. Carter Nursing Center) in Plains, Georgia, where his mother worked as a registered nurse. Carter was the first president of the United States to be born in a hospital. Bessie Lillian (née Gordy) and James Earl Carter Sr. raised him as their eldest son.
Carter is a descendant of Thomas Carter, an English immigrant who settled in Virginia in 1635. Several generations of Carters farmed cotton in Georgia. At the time of Carter’s birth, Plains was a thriving town of 600 people. His father was a prosperous local businessman who owned a general store and invested in farmland. During World War I, Carter’s father was a reserve second lieutenant in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. Carter’s family relocated several times during his childhood. The Carters chose a dirt road in Archery, which was almost entirely populated by impoverished African American families.
Carter attended Plains High School from 1937 to 1941, graduating in the eleventh grade because there was no twelfth grade at the time. The Great Depression had left Archery and Plains impoverished by that time, but the Carter family benefited from New Deal farm subsidies, and Carter’s father became a community leader. Carter was a hardworking student who enjoyed reading. According to a popular anecdote, he was passed over for valedictorian after he and his friends skipped school to go downtown in a hot rod. Carter’s truancy was reported in a local newspaper, but it’s unclear whether he would have been valedictorian otherwise. Carter was a member of the Plains High School basketball team as a teenager, and he also belonged to the Future Farmers of America, which helped him develop a lifelong interest in woodworking.
The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court anti-segregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education heightened racial tensions in Plains. Carter supported racial tolerance and integration, but kept his feelings to himself in order to avoid making enemies. As a prominent member of the Baptist Church and chairman of the Sumter County school board by 1961, he began to speak more forcefully in favor of integration. The dissolution of Georgia’s County Unit System opened up a state Senate seat in 1962, and Carter announced his candidacy for the seat 15 days before the election. Rosalynn, who had a natural knack for politics and organization, was invaluable to his campaign. Early ballot counting showed Carter trailing his opponent Homer Moore, but this was due to fraudulent voting orchestrated by Joe Hurst, the chairman of the Quitman County Democratic Party. Carter challenged the election results, which were later found to be fraudulent. Following that, another election was held, and Carter defeated Moore as the sole Democratic candidate by a vote margin of 3,013 to 2,182.
Jimmy Carter Children
On July 7, 1946, Jimmy Carter married Eleanor Rosalynn Smith (born. August 18, 1927).
They have four kids:
- John William “Jack”, b. July 3, 1947 in Portsmouth, VA.
- James Earl III “Chip”, b. April 12, 1950 in Honolulu, HI.
- Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff”, b. August 18, 1952 in New London, CT.
- Amy Lynn, b. October 19, 1967 in Plains, GA
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