Jimmy Carter's journey from naval officer to Nobel laureate
Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world.
Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by 바카라 게임 웹사이트Mr. Earl,바카라 게임 웹사이트 prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they바카라 게임 웹사이트d escaped.
The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but 바카라 게임 웹사이트for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.바카라 게임 웹사이트
The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president.
With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives.
Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living 바카라 게임 웹사이트 realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights.
바카라 게임 웹사이트He always felt a responsibility to help people,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. 바카라 게임 웹사이트And when he couldn바카라 게임 웹사이트t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Video above: U.S. leaders react to death of former President Jimmy Carter
Defying expectations
Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation, pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures.
바카라 게임 웹사이트We shouldn바카라 게임 웹사이트t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. 바카라 게임 웹사이트We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center 바카라 게임 웹사이트 advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 바카라 게임 웹사이트 and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity.
Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency.
바카라 게임 웹사이트He doesn바카라 게임 웹사이트t quite fit in today바카라 게임 웹사이트s terms바카라 게임 웹사이트 of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid.
At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself 바카라 게임 웹사이트progressive바카라 게임 웹사이트 or 바카라 게임 웹사이트conservative바카라 게임 웹사이트 바카라 게임 웹사이트 sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed 바카라 게임 웹사이트 perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments 바카라 게임 웹사이트 because it didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon.
It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, 바카라 게임 웹사이트but there바카라 게임 웹사이트s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Video above: President Biden speaks about the death of former President Jimmy Carter
바카라 게임 웹사이트Country come to town바카라 게임 웹사이트
Indeed, Carter바카라 게임 웹사이트s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions 바카라 게임 웹사이트 personal and political.
The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he바카라 게임 웹사이트d 바카라 게임 웹사이트kick his ass.바카라 게임 웹사이트 But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with 바카라 게임 웹사이트respect and compassion and with love.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Carter vowed to restore America바카라 게임 웹사이트s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats.
The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties.
Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would 바카라 게임 웹사이트never tell a lie.바카라 게임 웹사이트 Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic.
This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel바카라 게임 웹사이트s Menachem Begin and Egypt바카라 게임 웹사이트s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center바카라 게임 웹사이트s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did.
As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation바카라 게임 웹사이트s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective 바카라 게임 웹사이트crisis of confidence.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. 바카라 게임 웹사이트There you go again,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. 바카라 게임 웹사이트The Great Communicator바카라 게임 웹사이트 outpaced Carter in all but six states.
Video above: Historian reflects Jimmy Carter: 'Candidate for Mt. Rushmore'
Carter later suggested he 바카라 게임 웹사이트tried to do too much, too soon바카라 게임 웹사이트 and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as 바카라 게임 웹사이트country come to town.바카라 게임 웹사이트
A 바카라 게임 웹사이트leader of conscience바카라 게임 웹사이트 on race and class
Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office.
Born Oct. 1, 1924, Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation.
He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt바카라 게임 웹사이트s towering presence and his family바카라 게임 웹사이트s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname.
And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party.
As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services.
바카라 게임 웹사이트This is not my house; this is not your house,바카라 게임 웹사이트 he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God.
Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court바카라 게임 웹사이트s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time.
Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as 바카라 게임 웹사이트Cufflinks Carl바카라 게임 웹사이트 바카라 게임 웹사이트 the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment.
Carter바카라 게임 웹사이트s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters 바카라 게임 웹사이트 and landed on the cover of Time magazine 바카라 게임 웹사이트 by declaring that 바카라 게임 웹사이트the time for racial discrimination is over.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he바카라 게임 웹사이트d never sought out as he eyed the governor바카라 게임 웹사이트s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a 바카라 게임 웹사이트mistake.바카라 게임 웹사이트 But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention.
바카라 게임 웹사이트He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter바카라 게임 웹사이트s campaigns.
A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined.
He once acknowledged 바카라 게임 웹사이트the secret shame바카라 게임 웹사이트 of white Americans who didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability 바카라 게임 웹사이트 and thus everything he accomplished in office and after.
King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely 바카라 게임 웹사이트strategic바카라 게임 웹사이트 in winning higher offices to enact change. 바카라 게임 웹사이트He was a leader of conscience,바카라 게임 웹사이트 she said in an interview.
Rosalynn was Carter's closest advisor
Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the 바카라 게임 웹사이트more political바카라 게임 웹사이트 of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal.
바카라 게임 웹사이트Let that go until the second term,바카라 게임 웹사이트 she would sometimes say.
The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was 바카라 게임 웹사이트going to do what바카라 게임 웹사이트s right바카라 게임 웹사이트 even if 바카라 게임 웹사이트it might cut short the time I have.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: 바카라 게임 웹사이트She바카라 게임 웹사이트d remind him you have to win to govern.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later.
Many years later, he called it 바카라 게임 웹사이트inconceivable바카라 게임 웹사이트 that he didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t confer with the woman he described as his 바카라 게임 웹사이트full partner,바카라 게임 웹사이트 at home, in government and at The Carter Center.
바카라 게임 웹사이트We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021.
So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband바카라 게임 웹사이트s behalf.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I just loved it,바카라 게임 웹사이트 she said, despite the bitterness of defeat.
Reevaluating his legacy
Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges.
He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to 바카라 게임 웹사이트oligarchy.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to 바카라 게임 웹사이트move to a very liberal program,바카라 게임 웹사이트 lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump바카라 게임 웹사이트s populist appeal.
He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he바카라 게임 웹사이트d raised in his two general election campaigns. 바카라 게임 웹사이트Zero,바카라 게임 웹사이트 he바카라 게임 웹사이트d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs.
Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day.
바카라 게임 웹사이트Carter didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t look at it바카라 게임 웹사이트 as a failure, Alter emphasized. 바카라 게임 웹사이트He said, 바카라 게임 웹사이트They came home safely.바카라 게임 웹사이트 And that바카라 게임 웹사이트s what he wanted.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains바카라 게임 웹사이트 Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn. Carter, who made the congregation바카라 게임 웹사이트s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women바카라 게임 웹사이트s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, 바카라 게임 웹사이트subjugate바카라 게임 웹사이트 women in church and society.
Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. 바카라 게임 웹사이트I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,바카라 게임 웹사이트 he wrote around his 90th birthday.
Video above: Hometown of Plains, Ga. remembers former President Jimmy Carter
Pilgrimages to Plains
The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden.
바카라 게임 웹사이트He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, 바카라 게임 웹사이트put the best face바카라 게임 웹사이트 on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina.
Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, 바카라 게임 웹사이트I think you ought to drop out.바카라 게임 웹사이트
바카라 게임 웹사이트So matter of fact,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Buttigieg said with a laugh. 바카라 게임 웹사이트It was somehow encouraging.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view.
바카라 게임 웹사이트He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage 바카라 게임 웹사이트all of the instruments you have in life바카라 게임 웹사이트 and 바카라 게임 웹사이트make the world more peaceful.바카라 게임 웹사이트
In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him.
바카라 게임 웹사이트The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,바카라 게임 웹사이트 he declared. 바카라 게임 웹사이트Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice 바카라 게임 웹사이트 they are the patriots of this cause.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned 바카라 게임 웹사이트home to the South where I was born and raised,바카라 게임 웹사이트 home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become 바카라 게임 웹사이트a fellow citizen of the world.바카라 게임 웹사이트
바카라 게임 웹사이트
Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.