When Jimmy Carter stepped onto the national stage, he brought along those closest to him, introducing Americans to a Georgia family that helped shape the 39th president’s public life.
“Family has always been important to Uncle Jimmy,” said Kim Fuller, whose father, Billy Carter, was the former president’s youngest brother and a favorite subject of national political reporters drawn to this family of Washington outsiders.
The Carters are not an establishment dynasty like the Republican Bushes or the Democratic Kennedys – whose scion Ted Kennedy was a Carter rival. But the family is critical to understanding the former president, from his methodical style to his outspoken Baptist faith. As the candidate, Carter “would talk about how he would answer” voters so his stand-ins would be prepared for their next trips, Klobuchar said.
Unlike Earl Carter, Lillian was a relative progressive even when Carter was a child. She “was impervious to criticism because of her independent spirit,” Carter wrote around his 90th birthday. After their return to Georgia, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter built The Carter Center in Atlanta, staffed not by “the Peanut Brigade” but policy experts who advanced their international diplomatic and public health missions. In Plains, they became the marquee members of Maranatha Baptist Church, teaching Sunday School to overflow crowds until recent health problems and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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