The Nation: New Day A'Coming in the South

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His military career came to an abrupt end in 1953 with the death of his father; Carter came home to manage the family interests. The couple arrived just in time to preside over a peanut crop failure; the business netted $184 that first year. Slowly Carter began to build, stepping up his father's practice of buying local farmers' peanuts, then selling in bulk to the big processors. Today Carter Warehouse grosses $800,000 annually, and the Carter family owns, through various partnerships, 2,500 acres in Sumter and adjoining Webster County.

But the work of a Plains businessman did not occupy all his energies. Carter launched a warehousemen's association, ran for the school board, later the local hospital board. He joined civic groups, became a deacon of the Plains Baptist Church and finally wandered onto the political stump. His first whiff of electioneering was Georgia politics at its gamiest. During his election for state senator, the newcomer found some irregularities in one of the ballot boxes; an investigation and recount showed that Carter had been beaten by voters who were dead, jailed or never at the polls on Election Day. The election was reversed in his favor.

When Jimmy Carter went to the state legislature in 1962, he seemed just another country politician who had a special interest in education. But ten years out of his state, the exposure of travel and education, had changed Carter. He recalled the stunted development of the blacks of his youth: "We would play together as children, then something would happen at about age twelve or 14. Suddenly when you're playing, he would step back and open a gate for you or you wouldn't do certain things together any more. Then in later years, you'd go off to college or a job, and he would stay. And everyone kind of expected that."

A Prophet Without Honor

The expectations of Plains were no longer those of the young politician: members of Carter's church attempted to boycott his business after he made an impassioned speech against excluding blacks from church membership.

His first race for statewide office was the 1966 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Running on his progressive record as a state senator, he moved from the status of an unknown to a surprising third-place position in the crowded contest that, after a runoff, was finally won by Lester Maddox. Carter started preparations for the 1970 race immediately after that defeat. He took to poring over old Georgia budgets, and at the other extreme, stretching his mind on the likes of Reinhold Niebuhr and Dylan Thomas. Carter crisscrossed the state scores of times, delivering 1,800 speeches to small-town civic groups, schools and agriculture associations.