Historical Figure
Jimmy Carter
1924–2024
President of the United States from 1977 to 1981
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Biography
James Earl Carter Jr. was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served from 1971 to 1975 as the 76th governor of Georgia and from 1963 to 1967 in the Georgia State Senate. He lived longer than any other president in U.S. history, reaching age 100.
In Their Own Words (5)
With the possible exception of my two predecessors, I know better than anyone how complicated and intransigent are some of the foreign policy questions that confront a President.
"Text of Carter's Speech Attacking Foreign Policy of Reagan Administration" The New York Times (December 18, 1981) , 1981
At the end of a long campaign, I believe I know the people of our state as well as anyone. Based on this knowledge of Georgians North and South, Rural and Urban, liberal and conservative, I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.
Gubernatorial Inaugural Address (12 January 1971) , 1971
Iraq is an unjust war. I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false.
News conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England (30 July 2005), as quoted in "Carter: Iraq War is 'Unjust'" FOX News (July 30, 2005) , 2005
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
Remarks at a White House meeting commemorating the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (6 December 1978), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978 Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978, p. 2164 , 1978
It is apparent that prisoners of war are among the most vulnerable of people. Not only are they completely under the control of their captors, but in a time of conflict, the hatred and brutality of the battlefield are very likely to be mirrored within military prison walls.
Ch. 12 : Attacking Terrorism, Not Human Rights?, p. 125 , 2005
Timeline
The story of Jimmy Carter, told in moments.
Leaves the Navy after his father dies. Returns to Plains to run the peanut farm. He'd served on nuclear submarines under Admiral Hyman Rickover, who once asked him if he'd always done his best. Carter admitted he hadn't. Rickover stared at him and said nothing.
Inaugurated as the 39th President. His first act is pardoning Vietnam draft evaders. He walks the entire parade route from the Capitol to the White House instead of riding. The crowd doesn't know what to make of it.
Brokers the Camp David Accords between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. Thirteen days of isolation at the presidential retreat. They almost walk out twice. Carter shuttles between cabins. Egypt and Israel sign a peace treaty that still holds.
The Iran hostage crisis destroys his presidency. 52 Americans held for 444 days. A rescue mission crashes in the desert. He loses to Reagan in a landslide. The hostages are released 20 minutes after Reagan takes the oath.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for decades of work mediating conflicts, monitoring elections, and fighting disease. He builds houses with Habitat for Humanity into his 90s. He outlives every insult the 1980 election threw at him.
Dies in Plains at 100. The longest-lived American president. He spent his last years in hospice care in the same one-story house he built in 1961. His wife Rosalynn died the year before him.
Artifacts (2)
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