Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924 and grew up in the segregated rural South. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he served as a submarine officer before returning home to manage the family peanut business. He entered Georgia politics during the civil rights era and served as governor from 1971 to 1975. Running as an outsider after Watergate, he won the presidency in 1976 by promising honesty, human rights, and a government as good as the American people.

Carter’s domestic agenda faced severe economic difficulty. Inflation, unemployment, energy shortages, and slow growth created a sense of national frustration. He created the Department of Energy and Department of Education, promoted conservation, deregulated parts of the airline and trucking industries, and addressed the energy crisis as a long-term national challenge. His 1979 “crisis of confidence” speech identified deeper problems of trust, consumption, and civic purpose.

Foreign policy produced both major achievements and major crises. Carter brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, one of the most important peace agreements in modern Middle Eastern history. He made human rights a central theme of U.S. diplomacy and negotiated the Panama Canal treaties. But the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of American hostages in Tehran in 1979 overwhelmed his final year.

An attempted hostage rescue mission in 1980 was unsuccessful, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ended hopes for continued détente. Carter lost the 1980 election decisively to Ronald Reagan. His post-presidency became one of the most admired in American history through election monitoring, public health work, Habitat for Humanity, conflict mediation, and human rights advocacy.