Jimmy Carter’s Pragmatic Path to Power
An Idealist in and After Office, He Became a Governor and a President By Appealing to Racial and Class Prejudice
Former president Jimmy Carter, who will be 99 this Sunday, October 1, was only 46 when he first popped up on the national political radar. After declaring in his 1971 inaugural address as governor of Georgia that “the time for racial discrimination is over,” Carter followed through by increasing the number of Black people on state boards and commissions from three to 53, boosting Black employment in state jobs by 25%, and hanging a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. in the state capitol.
Media-wise, such moves secured Carter’s place within …
