Jimmy Carter

I don’t remember Jimmy Carter as a particularly good president. But I will always remember him as a great man.

I couldn’t have voted for him in 1976 when he first ran for president even if I had wanted to since I was only 16 years old, but in any event I preferred Gerald Ford, who may have visited my native Riverton as a boy and for whom our Riverton High School jazz band – the Spock Baby Generation – played at the Republican Convention in Jackson in 1976.

Carter did some good things during his four years in office, and what stands out for me is the Camp David Accords, 12 days of secret negotiations between Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. Carter oversaw the process at Camp David, and the Accords, signed at the White House, led directly to a peace treaty between former longtime enemies Egypt and Israel.

But Carter also seemed weak and ineffective as his administration fell victim to the Iran Hostage Crisis, the OPEC induced energy crisis with the resulting long lines at gas stations and some other missteps of policy. He lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Historians generally list Carter around the middle of the pack in the rankings of presidents. That sounds about right. He did some good things and some not so good things, but what I always believed and still do to this day is that he was a great human being.

Jimmy Carter was a decent, honorable man who didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk. And he was a rare president who grew in prominence and respect after his presidency, not just in recalculated memory but by his actions.

He’s not the first to do so. Thomas Jefferson, our third president whose image appears on Mount Rushmore, famously founded and helped design the University of Virginia after his presidency. He considered that among his greatest achievements, not the presidency, which he didn’t ask to be listed on his tombstone.

John Quincy Adams served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives following his presidency, William Howard Taft became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Herbert Hoover did some great work in various capacities following his single term in office.

Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29, spent only four of his 100 years as president, and over the last 44 years following his loss to Reagan he became active in myriad causes. He founded the influential Carter Center, which has advocated for human rights, free and fair elections, the alleviation of human suffering and treating tropical diseases in more than 80 countries around the world.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development” via the Carter Center.

And perhaps most visibly, he became the face of Habitat for Humanity, promoting the work of the non-profit home building organization and personally helping at building sites and pounding nails.

He taught Sunday school at his home church, Maranatha Baptist Church, well into his 90s.

Carter became not only the longest living former president, he was the president who was married the longest, united with his wife, Rosalynn, for 77 years until her death in 2023.

I question whether common decency matters in American politics anymore with our current cutthroat win-at-all-costs politics and toxic atmosphere, but if Jimmy Carter taught us anything, it is that decency and integrity still matter, that living a good and fulfilling life is achieved through service to others rather than political power and sticking it to the other guy. There are few like him in national politics anymore.

An ineffective president? Maybe. But Jimmy Carter is surely among the greatest ex-presidents ever. May he rest in peace.