Remembering Jimmy Carter’s Civil Rights Contributions

This career Jimmy CarterThe US president, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, will be remembered for many things: his background in peanut farming, his rapid rise to political fame and fall after one term, his handling – or mishandling – of the energy crisis and the Iranian hostage crisis.

Another achievement, from the beginning of his career, is perhaps less well known, but is equally worth remembering.

The mid-1970s, when Carter became a national public figure, was a time of transition, full of the aftershocks of progress and destruction that characterized the previous decade, not least in the arena. civil rights movement. Carter was a multi-generational Georgian whose farming family has a presence in the South preceded the United States itself. He had no problem asserting his Southern credentials, but he also differed from many of his neighbors when it came to integration and other racial issues.

As TIME told ua Profile from 1976 candidate at the time, his mother, known as “Miss Lillian,” was an intimidating presence in the lives of her four children, encouraging them to have compassion for all people, regardless of race—despite all the condemnations of prejudiced neighbors.

Read more: Jimmy Carter was more successful than he is given credit for

In 1966, Carter, the oldest of four children, lost the Georgia gubernatorial primary because of segregation. Four years later, he managed to win the support of some prominent segregationists in the state by giving them ground: He said he would allow George Wallace, perhaps the most famous of all, to speak in the statehouse if he won. But after winning office, Carter made it clear he hadn’t completely abandoned his principles, as TIME recounted in a 1976 story:

“Elected by a landslide, Carter appeared to have changed his office – leading to accusations that he had misled voters. In his inaugural address, he declared, “The time of racial discrimination is over. No poor rural white or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being denied the opportunity for education, work or simple justice.” [Segregationist former Governor Lester] Maddox shouted and started sniping at Carter. He never stopped. He even hounded Carter in New Hampshire last month to declare him the “McGovern of ’76” and the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of ’76.”

Unlike [former governor Carl] Sanders, Carter appointed blacks to positions at all levels of government. (Sanders today admits, “Carter is far more liberal than I ever was.”) He established a constituency “disruption unit” of various experts to mediate conflicts between blacks and whites. Because Georgia had no federal judges to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Carter replaced all of the state’s high school principals as registrars so they could register voters at school. He remodeled the state prison and mental hospitals, which had a large proportion of blacks. He established a system of addiction treatment and day care centers.

Carter may have attracted blacks even more strongly by making certain symbolic gestures. When black legislators had a party in their part of town, they sent a routine invitation to the governor. Much to their surprise, he appeared and word quickly spread that the governor was eating chitlin with the brothers. In the state capitol in 1974, Carter installed a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. on the wall amid pictures of other Georgia dignitaries, while the assembled crowd sang We Shall Overcome. Many blacks who did not vote for Carter turned to support him. Now his presidential campaign is supported by people as diverse as Martin Luther King Sr. and Henry Aaron.”

Of course, in the presidential primaries that year, Carter carried the African-American vote again and again. Like TIME noticed“The phenomenon of blacks supporting a Southern white man raised in the backwoods of Georgia is one of the most intriguing aspects of the campaign so far.” Although support for Carter was driven by his conciliatory nature, which he often expressed in spiritual language, it was also helped by the fact that George Wallace was one of his main opponents.

That choice helped many voters overlook moments when Carter’s civil rights record might be called into question, such as his wavering support for school busing. During the presidential campaign, Carter had to too apologize for what he called a “careless” choice of words in defending his stance against neighborhood integration legislation. (His discussion of the “purity” of communities brought to mind for many some of the worst examples of prejudice in history.) But as TIME noted when it called him in 1976 Man of the yearhis success “destroyed for ever the hopes of George Wallace of Alabama of rising to national power—a possibility already dimmed by the would-be assassin’s bullet. By showing that a non-racist Southerner could win the major party nomination, Carter gave new pride to his region and went far in healing old wounds.”

After becoming president, after a period of relative seclusion in his hometown in Georgia, he returned to public life and brought his ideals with him, devoting his life to bettering the world. In 1989, TIME declared that he is “perhaps the best ex-president America has ever had”; In 2002, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not that those who have followed his career would be surprised. asked by TIME, just before he got to the White House, regardless of whether all the work he had to do was a big possibility, Jimmy Carter displayed the same humble commitment that would guide him through the decades that followed: “Yes, ” he said, “but not so much that I would want someone else to do it”.

Read the interview with Jimmy Carter ahead of his inauguration: “I’m looking forward to work”

Read Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Man of the Year cover story: I’m Jimmy Carter, and…