Jimmy Carter is 101 years old, and for most of us, he’s the "saintly" former president who builds houses for poor people. He’s the Nobel Peace Prize winner. He’s the guy who fought guinea worm in Africa. But if you dig into the archives of Georgia politics in the late sixties and early seventies, you find a very different vibe. People often ask, was Jimmy Carter racist, because his 1970 gubernatorial campaign looked nothing like the humanitarian image he projects today.
It's complicated. Honestly, it’s messy.
To understand the man, you have to look at Plains, Georgia. This wasn’t some progressive enclave. It was the heart of the "Black Belt." When the Civil Rights movement began to boil over, Carter was a local businessman and a member of the school board. This is where the first real red flag pops up. In the 1950s, after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, white supremacist groups formed "Citizens' Councils" to fight integration. They pressured every white man in town to join. Carter refused. He was one of only a handful of white men in Sumter County who wouldn't pay the $5 membership fee. His business was boycotted. He nearly lost everything.
That doesn't sound like a racist, right? But then 1970 happened.
The 1970 Campaign: A Pivot to the Right
If you want to argue that Carter used race to win power, the 1970 Georgia governor’s race is your "Exhibit A." Carter had lost four years earlier by running as a moderate. He decided he wouldn't lose again. He ran against Carl Sanders, a former governor who was seen as a liberal "Cufflinks Carl."
Carter’s campaign went after the "Wallace voters"—the supporters of the famously segregationist George Wallace. His campaign distributed leaflets showing Sanders standing with Black basketball players. They didn't have to say "don't vote for the guy who likes Black people," because the image did the talking for them in 1970 Georgia. Carter also made a point to visit a private "segregation academy," which were schools set up specifically to avoid integration.
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He won.
But here is the twist that makes historians' heads spin. The second he took the oath of office, he stood on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol and said, "The time for racial discrimination is over."
The segregationists who voted for him felt betrayed. They called him a "snake in the grass." Roy Harris, a hardcore segregationist kingmaker, famously said he’d been "took." Carter had basically faked a hard-right stance to get the keys to the office, then immediately pivoted to being the most progressive governor Georgia had ever seen. He hung a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. in the capitol—a move that was absolutely unthinkable at the time.
Analyzing the Numbers: The Carter Presidency and Race
When he moved to the White House, the question of was Jimmy Carter racist shifted from his personal beliefs to his policy results. You can look at the data to see how his administration actually functioned.
- Judicial Appointments: This is where Carter’s legacy is arguably strongest. Before Carter, the federal bench was almost exclusively white and male. Carter appointed 40 women and 55 minorities to federal judgeships. To put that in perspective, he appointed more Black judges than all previous presidents in U.S. history combined.
- The Voting Rights Act: He was a staunch defender of the VRA, pushing for extensions that ensured federal oversight in states with histories of discrimination.
- Minority Business: His administration significantly increased federal contracting with minority-owned firms. The "set-aside" programs saw a jump from $1.1 billion to over $3 billion during his four years.
He wasn't perfect, though. Critics point to his 1976 "ethnic purity" comment. While campaigning for president, he used that specific phrase to describe neighborhoods, saying he saw nothing wrong with people trying to maintain the "ethnic purity" of their communities. It was a massive gaffe. It sounded like code for "keep Black people out of white neighborhoods." He apologized later, saying he meant "ethnic character," but the damage was done. It reminded people of the 1970 version of Jimmy Carter.
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The Complicated Reality of the 1970s
You've gotta remember that Carter was a product of his time, trying to navigate a world that was moving from Jim Crow to whatever comes next.
In his personal life, the evidence is pretty thin for any deep-seated racial animosity. His lifelong friendship with his childhood neighbors, who were Black, and his close working relationship with Andrew Young and Coretta Scott King suggest a man who was genuinely committed to equality. Andrew Young, whom Carter appointed as the first Black U.S. Ambassador to the UN, has always defended Carter, saying he did what he had to do to win in a state that wasn't ready for a full-blown liberal.
But does "doing what you have to do" involve exploiting racial fears?
For some, that makes him a pragmatist. For others, it’s an unforgivable stain. If you look at his post-presidency, it seems he spent 40 years trying to make up for those early political maneuvers. The Carter Center’s work in Africa and its election monitoring in developing nations are often seen as an extension of a man trying to leave the world better than he found it.
Moving Past the Label
So, was he? If by "racist" you mean someone who believes in the inherent superiority of one race over another, the evidence suggests no. His actions as Governor and President were transformative for Black Americans in terms of representation and legal protection.
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However, if you mean "did he use race as a political tool," the answer is almost certainly yes.
The 1970 campaign is a masterclass in "dog-whistle" politics. He knew what he was doing. He knew those photos of Carl Sanders would trigger a specific response in white voters. He traded on the anxiety of the era to get into a position where he could actually do some good. It’s a classic "the ends justify the means" scenario.
Key Takeaways from Carter's Racial Legacy
- The Flip-Flop: Carter’s 1970 campaign used segregationist rhetoric, but his inaugural speech declared an end to discrimination.
- The Bench: He revolutionized the federal judiciary by appointing a record number of Black and female judges.
- The Gaffes: Phrases like "ethnic purity" shadowed his 1976 campaign, showing his struggle to communicate across the racial divide at times.
- The "New South": He came to represent the "New South" governor—men who stopped fighting the federal government on civil rights and focused on economic growth for all citizens.
Practical Steps for Further Research
If you really want to get into the weeds of this, don't just take my word for it. There are three specific resources you should look at to see the "raw" Jimmy Carter before he was a global icon.
- Read "The Unfinished Presidency" by Douglas Brinkley. It covers his later years but dives deep into his early motivations.
- Look up the 1970 Georgia Gubernatorial campaign ads. You can find transcripts and some video clips in the Georgia state archives. Watch how the messaging shifted depending on which part of the state he was in.
- Check the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) database. Look at the demographic shift in appointments between the Nixon/Ford years and the Carter years. The numbers are staggering and represent a permanent shift in how the U.S. legal system looks.
Understanding the nuance of Jimmy Carter helps us understand how American politics actually works. It's rarely about pure villains or pure heroes. It's usually about people who are willing to get their hands dirty in a flawed system to achieve what they think is a better outcome. Whether that makes the 1970 campaign "okay" is something voters and historians are still debating fifty years later.
To get a full picture of the era, compare Carter's 1970 strategy with the "Southern Strategy" used by the GOP at the same time. You'll see that both parties were wrestling with how to handle a white electorate that was terrified of the changes brought by the 1960s. Carter just happened to be the one who pivoted the hardest once he actually won.