10 GROUNDCOVER NEWS U.S. HISTORY JANUARY 10, 2024 President Carter exemplified Dr. King's vision of a Beloved Community Hello 2025, farewell 2024! In the afternoon and evening of December 29, 2024, the major broadcast news and cable news outlets announced that former President Jimmy Carter had died. He was the 39th President of the United States. What else do we know about Jimmy Carter? He was born in 1924 in a rural southern Georgia town known as Plains. His father was a peanut farmer who owned a large farm. His mother was a registered nurse. Young Jimmy Carter grew up in a house with no plumbing and electricity. His community was mostly rural and poor. He spent time with poor white and Black kids in his rural farm community. His family members attended church services in Plains as Evangelical Christians. Jimmy Carter identified as a long-term member of the Southern Baptist Evangelical Christian Church. He was a man of faith who had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. After high school, Carter attended the U.S. Naval Academy and was trained as a nuclear engineer for a Navy submarine. He graduated in 1946 and came home to Georgia. He asked an adorable young woman, Rosalynn, for a date. They went to the theater to see a movie. Soon after he proposed to her, and subsequently they got married. His career as a Navy nuclear engineer was cut short when his father died. Carter returned to Plains in 1953 to continue his father’s peanut farming business. Southern Georgia was a bastion of racism and discrimination during the “Jim Crow” era of the 1950s and 1960s. Young Carter’s neighbors, who were members of a white supremacy group, incessantly tried to get him to join. He repeatedly said no, even when they offered to pay the membership dues of won the Democratic presidential nomination and defeated President Gerald Ford, the Republican nominee, in the November 1976 election. As president, WILL SHAKESPEARE Groundcover vendor No. 258 $5 for him. He was ridiculed by the racist group. They called him all kinds of derogatory names. Carter said that he was aware of the racism, discrimination and racial injustice in his home state. He wanted to bring opportunities in education, jobs and housing to the disadvantaged and the dispossessed. He served two terms as a state senator in Georgia during the 1960s. In the 1970s, he ran for Governor. He won! During his February inaugural speech, he got everyone’s attention when he declared, “I say to you, quite frankly, the time for racial discrimination is over …” Carter served as Governor of Georgia for one term which ended in 1975. In 1976, he ran for President of the United States. America, as a nation, was mired in melancholy and sadness over the “Watergate Break-in” crisis which resulted in the articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. He had resigned in 1974 and his replacement, Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was immediately sworn in as the 38th President. After Carter declared his intention to run for President, a large cross-section of the American people kept asking, “Jimmy who?” Aware of his lack of name recognition, Carter, on the campaign trail of 1975 and 1976, would often say, “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I am running for President.” Carter Jimmy Carter appointed more women in key positions and federal courts than any of the previous presidents. He also appointed more Black people and other minorities to key positions than any of the previous presidents. President Carter was credited for improving the lives of “the safety net population” in the areas of public health, housing and other human service provisions. However, high food inflation, high interest rates, high gas prices and high unemployment doomed his chances for re-election against Ronald Reagan who repeatedly used the slogan, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” The Iran hostage crisis was a drag on his superlative foreign policy achievements, especially the Camp David Accords, which established a historic framework for peace between Israel and Egypt. Many historians say that President Carter’s four decades of service after he left the White House was a remarkable accomplishment. Carter and his wife Rosalynn traveled the world after they built the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta and another one in Plains. The Carter Center was a platform for the Carters to visit poor communities in developing nations to help address infectious diseases such as malaria, Guinea worms and HIV-AIDS. They also helped to feed the poor; house the homeless; provide safe drinking water; build roads, hospitals, and community centers; and helped with a team of trained observers to monitor presidential elections in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central AmerPresident Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, assisting with the construction of a "Habitat For Humanity" project. ica and South America. Domestically, President and Rosalynn Carter entered into a partnership with Habitat for Humanity which has lasted for more than 40 years. “Habitat for Humanity envisions a world where everyone has a decent place to live, and President Carter was truly one of the great lights illuminating our path to that goal,” says a tribute posted by the East Bay / Silicon Valley Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. This California chapter continues, “President Carter famously said, ‘I have one life and one chance to make it count for something … My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.’” We are deeply grateful for his 100 years of "making it count" toward the building of a better tomorrow. Dr. King’s Vision of the Beloved Community On the topic of “The Beloved Community,” the King Center in Atlanta see CARTER next page PUZZLE SOLUTIONS
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