History Book: A life of leadership and service

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming next on The World and Everything in It, as you heard a moment ago, America’s 39th president has died. Jimmy Carter was 100 and he died yesterday at his home in Plains, Georgia a little more than 13 months after his wife Rosalynn. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has this remembrance of the former president.

LINDSAY MAST: James Earl Carter Jr. was born near the tiny south Georgia town of Plains in October 1924. His father was a businessman, his mother a nurse. The ambitious younger Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and married Rosalynn Smith the same year.

Carter worked on the Navy’s first nuclear-powered submarines. But he retired and moved home to Plains in the 1950s after his father died.

Carter served on the local school board and in the state senate before he was elected Georgia’s governor in 1970. His first words as governor dealt with discrimination. They took many of his supporters by surprise and set the stage for his rise to national prominence. Audio here from his gubernatorial inaugural speech.

CARTER: At the end of a long campaign, I believe I know our people of this state, as well as anyone could. Based on this knowledge I say to you, quite frankly, that the time for racial discrimination is over.

Carter gained a national reputation for his views on race in the Deep South. Still, he was a long shot candidate in the 1976 race against then-President Gerald Ford.

Carter boldly professed his Christian faith on the campaign trail, but held strict views about the separation of church and state. He helped bring the term “born again” into the common vernacular when he used the term to refer to himself. Carter spoke of his faith during his inauguration.

CARTER: And I have just taken the oath of office, on the Bible my mother gave me just a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet, Micah. He has showed you, oh man what is good. And what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly, with our God.

In both domestic and foreign policy, Carter prioritized human rights. He appointed record numbers of minorities to government jobs. He also established the U-S Departments of Energy and Education.

A hallmark of his presidency came in 1978. He brokered a peace treaty between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

CARTER: One of the documents they are signing tonight is entitled “A framework for peace in the Middle East.” *applause*

More than four decades on, the Camp David Accords still stand.

Despite that success, domestic issues like inflation, rising fuel prices, and a recession all took a toll on Carter’s political career.

Audio here during a period of gas rationing, from WPIX.

WPIX: This is unreal! Isn’t this disgusting? Why isn’t anybody contacting the president, why is he letting this happen to us?

His final year in office was largely dominated by the Iranian hostage crisis. After the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power, Carter allowed Iran’s overthrown shah into the U.S. In November 1979, student militants took more than 50 Americans hostage from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Carter green-lit a rescue attempt in which eight American military members died. His popularity plunged. He ultimately negotiated a release, but it didn’t come in time to help him retain the presidency.

He lost the 1980 election. Iran freed the hostages the day he left office in 1981.

HOSTAGES RELEASED: The new president had not been in office an hour when the former hostages became free men and women again.

The Carters moved home to Plains, Georgia. They sold the family peanut farm and began writing. Carter’s body of work includes more than thirty books including memoirs, fiction, and collections of writings on his faith.

Carter’s beliefs did not always align with Christian orthodoxy. He did not believe the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy and supported female clergy. He renounced his affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention—twice. In his later life, Carter also voiced his increased acceptance of the practice of homosexuality.

But he continued to tell people about the gospel. He regularly taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. Audio here from the last class he taught, in 2019, shortly after he turned 95.

CARTER: I have confidence that there is a God and He's all powerful that he keeps his promises and he promises life after death, and I’m also a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ, having been raised raised from the dead.

In those last years, hundreds of visitors of various religions–or sometimes no religion at all–arrived each week to attend his class and get a picture with Carter.

His niece, Kim Carter Fuller:

FULLER: He's standing up here, letting you know how much the love of Christ has impacted the way that he lives. And it made people feel that, okay, if the former leader of the free world can, can let Christ do that for him, then I can let him do it for me.

Carter also spent his post-presidency years on global humanitarian efforts. In 1982 he and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in Atlanta to help resolve conflicts and work for human rights worldwide. The Center’s work has helped to nearly eradicate guinea worm disease. The Carters also became heavily involved with Habitat for Humanity.

In 1999, the Carters received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2002, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian and diplomatic work.

CARTER: Ladies and gentlemen, war may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

Carter survived melanoma and a series of falls before entering Hospice care in early 2023. His wife Rosalynn died last November. Carter is survived by four adult children and more than 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast.

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