His Very Best

Jimmy Carter witnessed the legacy of slavery during his childhood in Georgia before serving as a Naval officer.

Carter’s ancestors owned enslaved people and land that the state of Georgia took from the Creek Indians in 1825 and sold to white settlers. Carter’s father had Black tenant farmers. Carter’s mother Lillian, a nurse, treated Black patients and delivered their babies, usually for token compensation.

Most of Carter’s family farm playmates were Black, so in 1930, when he started attending an all-white school in his hometown of Plains, he felt like an outsider, a persona he embraced in politics. In June 1943, Carter attended the US Naval Academy and joined the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. 

Rosalynn Smith graduated from Plains High School and married Jimmy, age 21, in 1946 when she was 18. They have four children – Jack, James III (“Chip”), Donnel (Jeff) and Amy – eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. As of July 2020, the Carters had been married 74 years.

Carter became a submarine officer and gained promotion to full...