Why Jimmy Carter is one of my favourite leaders
Former US president Jimmy Carter speaking to the media after a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at United Nations headquarters in New York on October 25, 2007. FILE PHOTO | STAN HONDA |
What you need to know:
- Carter will always be a part of my personal journey.
- I expect to learn more he fights cancer.
Carter, who is now 90, told the world recently that he has cancer.
On Thursday, he said he was beginning treatment on four areas of melanoma in his brain.
Such a diagnosis causes reflection. My first encounter with Carter was in 1974.
I was a young journalist in the south, and Carter was Georgia governor. He was active in the Baptist church and often made guest appearances to teach Sunday school lessons.
I heard that he was coming my way on one weekend so I asked for an interview.
We sat in the home of John C Calhoun for hours, talking about his hopes for new racial attitudes in the south and a possible run for the presidency. The setting in Calhoun’s restored home was odd, because Calhoun had been an advocate of slavery during the war.
Carter treated me with kindness and answered every question. Later, I covered his race in 1976 against the incumbent, Gerald Ford and a third party candidate Governor George Wallace of Alabama.
Ford was clumsy and had lost credibility after pardoning Richard Nixon, who had resigned the presidency because of the Watergate scandal. Wallace was far worse – a product of the old south who advocated racial segregation.
The difference between the three candidates could not have been more apparent. Wallace dropped out and Carter won the race.
Much later in life, my wife and young son met Carter at a store. She was buying a book by Carter as a surprise Christmas present for me. She was waiting in a long line for his signature. Impatient with the delay, our son climbed out of his carriage and ran toward Carter’s desk.
“What’s your name?” my son asked.
“My name is Jimmy,” Carter replied. “What is yours?”
The conversation went on until my exasperated wife arrived.
Defeated after one term, Carter spent his retirement years building homes for the poor and promoting peace. He took unpopular stands, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was the first to say racism was behind some of the early criticisms of President Obama.
I remember how he lived in a turbulent time, trying to set a good example. Carter will always be a part of my personal journey. I expect to learn more he fights cancer.
