President Jimmy Carter, his brother Billy Carter and the Carter’s tenant farmer Leonard Wright survey the Carter peanut farm land during the President’s first trip back to his hometown of Plains, Georgia since taking office. Carter and Wright also plucked watermelons and shared them with the traveling White House press .
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician, philanthropist, and former farmer who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. Since leaving the presidency, Carter has remained engaged in political and social projects as a private citizen; in 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding the Carter Center. Raised in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree and joined the United States Navy, where he served on submarines. After the death of his father in 1953, Carter left his naval career and returned home to Georgia to take up the reins of his family's peanut-growing business. Carter inherited comparatively little due to his father's forgiveness of debts and the division of the estate among the children. Nevertheless, his ambition to expand and grow the Carters' peanut business was fulfilled. During this period, Carter was motivated to oppose the political climate of racial segregation and support the growing civil rights movement. He became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967, Carter served in the Georgia State Senate, and in 1970, he was elected as Governor of Georgia, defeating former Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary on an anti-segregation platform advocating affirmative action for ethnic minorities. Carter remained as governor until 1975. Despite being a dark-horse candidate who was little known outside of Georgia at the start of the campaign, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. In the general election, Carter ran as an outsider and narrowly defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford. On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all the Vietnam War draft evaders by issuing Proclamation 4483.
Size: 6992px × 4647px
Location: Carter Farm, Plains, Georgia
Photo credit: © Ken Hawkins / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1977, ag, agriculture, america, american, baptist, billy, carter, crop, crops, democrat, earl, elect, election, faith, farm, farmer, farming, friend, georgia, governor, habitat, harvest, harvesting, house, humanity, james, jimmy, land, leader, leonard, peanut, plains, plant, planting, politician, politics, president, presidential, race, south, southern, states, tenant, united, watermelon, white, work, wright
