Jimmy Carter: A Southern Giant of Peace and Service
Chuck Reece was a teenager when he first shook Carter’s hand, not knowing the man would transcend politics to become a global force for good. A few words from one Southerner about another’s century-long dedication to peace, equality, and human dignity.
Since time immemorial—or at least since everybody I grew up with can remember—the Ellijay, Georgia, Lions Club has put on the Gilmer County Fair every summer.
Farmers young and old compete to see whose corn, squash, okra, tomatoes, and other vegetables came out of the garden biggest and best looking. Kids get to ride the tilt-a-whirl and the ferris wheel, and slam into each other in bumper cars.
I particularly remember one teenage summer at that fair. I was walking across the fairgrounds to meet some friends when a casually dressed man with red hair walked up to me and said this:
My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.
I’m sure he knew I wasn’t old enough to vote for him, but I was mighty pleased that he shook my hand, anyway. If my memory serves me right, he was wearing a Marshall Tucker Band T-shirt. That band from South Carolina was one of my favorites at the time, so I figured Mr. Carter was cool.
But I could never have guessed I had just shaken hands with one of the greatest human beings my home state would ever produce. Let’s study his life for a moment.
At age 28, Naval Ensign Carter led a team that dismantled a nuclear reactor that was melting down.
On the day he was sworn in as governor, he declared, “The time of racial discrimination is over.”
As president, he brokered the Camp David Accords, ending the war between Egypt and Israel.
After he left office, he founded the Carter Center in 1982 to defend human rights and reduce human suffering. Among its countless achievements, the Center led the eradication of Guinea worm disease, a parasitic infection that afflicted 3.5 million people in Africa and Asia four decades ago. In 2024, only seven cases were reported worldwide. Perhaps you’d get the magnitude of this humanitarian achievement more strongly if I expressed it this way: Since Jimmy Carter focused his organization on eradicating that disease forty-two years ago, the number of cases has been reduced by 99.9998 percent.
The way Jimmy Carter lived his life—focused entirely on ensuring that all human beings had an equal chance to pursue life, liberty, and happiness—was an example of the American ideal to the whole world. But I also see the man whose hand I shook a half-century ago as a living model for a far larger ideal.
People have argued for decades about whether Jimmy Carter was a “good president.” The answer depends on how you define “good president.” But there can be no argument about whether President Carter ever traded his Christian ideals for raw power. He did not.
I bounce between a couple of different Sunday school classes at my church in Decatur, Georgia. One class provides some deep theological studies. The other is a group of men who reread some scripture from the previous Sunday’s lessons and try to figure out what it ought to mean to us. I was in that men’s room this morning. The seasons of Advent and Christmas often had us studying the words of Old Testament prophets who envisioned the coming of someone who would bring peace at last to the war-torn lands of Judah. This morning, we read from the work of the prophet Micah, who wrote his prophesies 700 years before the birth of Jesus.
“From you shall come forth…one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days…and he shall be the one of peace,” Micah wrote. Our group of men, whose political views are diverse, read that and talked about how those prophets seemed always to be looking for a king, a ruler, a man of power who would lay waste to their enemies. But what they wound up getting was a man whose message wasn’t warlike. It was peace embodied: love each other, feed the hungry, stand up for the folks who get left out or left behind.
People have argued for decades about whether Jimmy Carter was a “good president” from 1977 to 1981. The answer depends on how you define “good president.” But there can be no argument about whether President Carter ever traded that Christian ideal for raw power. He did not. In his speeches and writings, during and after his presidency, he always reminded us that those who have much must be willing to give much. I’ve always been partial to the way he put it in 2002, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize:
“A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It’s a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”
When President James Earl Carter Jr. passed away this afternoon at the age of 100, a giant walked off our Southern soil. May all of us who make this region our home remember—and try to live up to—his examples.
About the author
Chuck Reece is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Salvation South, the weekly web magazine you're reading right now. He was the founding editor of The Bitter Southerner. He grew up in the north Georgia mountains in a little town called Ellijay.
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- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
In 2016 I worked in one of the Clinic buildings at Emory. President Carter had a doctor visit on another floor of the building. After his appointment he took the time the walk the other floors and wave to everyone. I saw him immediately outside my office glass; he absolutely radiated kindness and humility. I have always been an admirer of his global work and leadership, but in this moment he felt like a friendly neighbor.
Not long after moving to Atlanta from New York City in 1988 my wife and I hit Manuel’s Tavern before a show at the Variety Playhouse. When we walked through the door to the bar my wife commented about two men at the first booth, “Jeez, those guys look like FBI agents or something.” We sat down in the big room and my wife smiles, looks past me and says, “There’s a man over there, looks like he could be Jimmy Carter’s brother.” I turned around, turned back, and giggled, “Sweetie, that IS Jimmy Carter. And Rosalynn sitting with him.”
There was a party of perhaps 18 at a couple of the big tables pulled together. The Carters got up to leave and President Carter ambled over to the big group and asked, “Whose birthday is it?” One of the women was pointed to by the rest. Carter said, “Happy birthday, darlin'”, blew her a kiss, and left with Mrs. Carter. I imagine that was one of the most unforgettable birthday presents of that woman’s life; he knew the impact of any gesture of kindness, big or small.
A light has gone out in our world. Nice farewell, Chuck Reece. c