This article explores how Jimmy Carter's life was deeply connected to America's history with slavery. It highlights his early experiences with racial segregation and how he navigated the complexities of race and politics throughout his career.
FILE - Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., Rosalynn Carter, President Jimmy Carter, Coretta Scott King, Christine Parris King, sister of the late Dr. King, and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young sing during a reception honoring friends of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change in Washington, on Oct. 3, 1978. ATLANTA — Young Jimmy Carter and his friends were walking across a pasture after a day’s farm labor during the Great Depression.
Carter “sometimes juggled the line to get into office,” said Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated two years before Carter’s election as Georgia governor. But he was “a real friend to the Black community,” she said, and once elected, “did things that most elected officials from the South just didn’t dare do.”
Still, he hunted, fished and crafted toys together with his Black friends, and the close proximity gave the future president a window into how Black Americans lived. Running for governor in 1966, Carter positioned himself as a racial moderate. He said he ran to block white supremacist Lester Maddox. But when Carter finished a close third in the primary, he notably declined to endorse the more openly liberal Democrat, whom Maddox defeated.
Carter’s needle-threading worked. He won the primary, carrying the same rural areas and small towns that had propelled Maddox four years earlier.
JIMMY CARTER RACIAL LEGACY SLAVERY CIVIL RIGHTS AMERICA
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