My 9 favorite facts about Jimmy Carter

An amazing life.

I am not even going to attempt to summarize the life of Jimmy Carter. The 39th president lived until 100 — and the span of his life is jaw-dropping.

The New York Times obituary runs to 10,000 words. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s obit is more than 5,000 words. (Both are worth reading, by the way.)

Instead of trying to present the grand sweep of Carter’s life, I thought I would pick out a few of my favorite facts about him — many of which have been (mostly) lost to history.

They’re below.

1. Carter was the first future president to be born in a hospital. He was born at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia where his mother worked as a registered nurse. The two men who followed Carter as president — Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — were NOT born in hospitals. Reagan, who was older than Carter, was born in an apartment above a bakery in Tampico, Illinois. Bush was born at a house in Milton, Massachusetts.

2. Carter, famously, grew up poor on a farm. But his father was a dedicated tennis player. He built a clay court next to the Carter’s home and regularly hosted tournaments there. Here’s Carter writing in 1975 about playing his dad: “My father…was an excellent tennis player. I could never beat my father. He had a wicked sliced ball which barely bounded at all on the relatively soft dirt court.” In the White House, Carter continued to play tennis and, according to some, personally okayed the use of the tennis court on the complex. (Some Carter aides deny this!) I wrote all about Carter and tennis in my book “Power Players: Sports, Politics and the American Presidency.”

3. Carter only completed 11 grades. Why? His school didn’t have a 12th grade. (Georgia added 12th grade in 1945.) Carter was the only one of the 26 graduates of his high school class to finish college. He was supposed to be the valedictorian but skipped school on April Fool’s Day. He wound up as the salutatorian. Carter started his college career at Georgia Southwestern College before moving to Georgia Tech and then the Naval Academy in 1943.

4. Carter’s first election was WILD. In 1962, Carter ran for a Georgia state Senate seat. He announced on October 1(!) for a primary 15 days later. He won the most votes but there was pretty clear election fraud. Carter appealed and then demanded a recount. Eventually the entire primary was thrown out(!) and a judge ordered that the re-do primary be held on the day of the general election. Carter won convincingly. Read this great piece by

   Nathaniel Rakich
   on that election.

5. Carter loved music — especially Bob Dylan. In accepting the Democratic nomination in 1976, Carter quoted Dylan’s song “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

   He once called Dylan “one of my best friends.” In a 2020 interview — the last on-camera interview Dylan has done — he said this of Carter:

   When I first met Jimmy, first thing he did was quote my songs back to me. It was the first time that I realized my songs had reached into the establishment world. I had no experience in that realm, never seen that side, so it made me a little uneasy. He put my mind at ease by not talking down to me and showing me that he had a sincere appreciation of the songs that I’d written.

   Dylan added of Carter: “He’s a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind. The kind of man you don’t meet every day, and you’re lucky to meet if you ever do.”

   For more on Carter’s love of music, read this by the NYT music critic Jon Pareles. And, shoutout to

   Ted Gioia
   for noting that Carter hosted what might have been the greatest lineup of jazz musicians ever during his time in the White House.

   

6. The closest Carter and his wife Rosalynn, who were married for 77 years, came to divorce was when they tried to write a book together. This, flagged by my friend Carlos Lozada from Carter’s memoir, is amazing:

7. Carter was in the habit of shaking hands with everyone who flew on a plane with him. This video, via Delta’s X account, is awesome:

   

8. Carter got much more popular after he left office. The final Gallup poll of Carter’s time in office showed just 34% of Americans approving of him. A decade after he left office — in 1990 — just 45% of people approved. But by 2023 nearly 6 in 10 approved of Carter.

   

9. Carter’s favorite president was Harry Truman. In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Carter explained why. “My favorite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman,” he said. “When Truman left office he took the same position. He didn't serve on corporate boards. He didn't make speeches around the world for a lot of money.”