Jimmy Carter's Youth and Navy Years: From Plowing With Mules to Nuclear Submarines

What can we learn by reflecting on Jimmy Carter’s youth,
school years, Navy years, and his service as a State Senator
and Governor of Georgia?
In his autobiography, Jimmy Carter tells us how he
progressed from plowing his father’s fields with a mule to
his service on one of the first US Navy nuclear submarines.
Jimmy carter also reflects on the civil rights and
humanitarian efforts during his youth, during his service in
the Navy, and during his terms as State Senator, then as
Governor of Georgia.

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video.
Please feel free to follow along in the PowerPoint
script we uploaded to SlideShare, which includes
illustrations. Our sister blog includes footnotes, both
include our Amazon book links.

Jimmy Carter: A Full Life, Reflections at Ninety
https://youtu.be/em5snF_iKkE
https://amzn.to/3JbYJSf
https://youtu.be/sN3MQevsDa4
Youth, School, Navy, Georgia Politics
Presidency and Carter Center
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https://amzn.to/3FLDuVZ

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Jimmy Carter titled the first chapter of his
biography: Archery and the Race Issue. The Carter
family had deep roots in rural Plains, Georgia,
south of Atlanta.

Jimmy Carter said that his
grandfather, Billy Carter, in the
late 1800’s, “when he was
harvesting sugarcane, his
machete was deflected into his
thigh, inflicting a deep gash.
Billy used his belt to stop the
flow of blood, sent to the
house for a needle and thread,
sewed up the wound, and
resumed work. He was shot
and killed in a fight with a man
named Will Taliaferro, in an
altercation over a desk stolen
from his cotton gin.”

Jimmy Carter tells us that
his father, Earl Carter,
“became a full-time
farmer in 1928 when I
was four years old. I was
raised on a farm he
bought about two and a
half miles west of Plains
in the rural community
known as Archery,” an
unincorporated town of
about two hundred.

They purchased a house built from plans purchased from a Sears
& Roebuck catalog. Since the lumber was purchased locally, they
likely chose to purchase the plans, tools, and supplies from Sears,
which were shipped to them in a railroad boxcar.
Jimmy Carter’s life showed how many Americans transitioned
from the early days of automobiles to a technologically advanced
society of airplanes and nuclear power. When the Jack Dempsey
fights were broadcast, they powered the radio from a cable run
from their truck battery so all the neighbors could hear it.

My daughter Laura
standing on the
front porch of the
Carter house on
their farm, National
Park Service
restoration, in
Archery, near Plains,
Georgia

Jimmy Carter remembers:
We had “no running
water, electricity, or
insulation, and the only
heat sources besides the
kitchen stove were some
open fireplaces.” “We
relieved ourselves in ‘slop
jars’ during the night and
emptied them in an
outdoor toilet at daylight.
It was the only privy on
the farm; other families
just used the bushes.”

This primitive sanitation led to widespread infections
of hookworm in the American South. Dr Stiles
discovered the hookworm parasite in the early
twentieth century. He also discovered that half to
three-quarters of Southerners suffered from
hookworm, which caused chronic anemia. The
solution was to convince people to wear shoes
outside and to use outhouses or indoor plumbing.

https://www.wondrium.com/turning-points-in-american-history

Jimmy Carter continues, “We drew
water from a well in the backyard
until 1935 when Daddy had a
windmill installed and ran a pipe
from its tank into our kitchen and
bathroom. He made a shower bath
by punching holes in the bottom of
a galvanized bucket hanging over a
concrete floor, and the used water
ran through a pipe onto the ground
outside.”

As part of FDR’s New Deal
policies, electricity was
provided to rural
communities. Sometime after
1939, “Daddy prevailed upon
the local cooperative to
extend the electrical lines to
our home.” The Carters had
sold their farm, but the
National Park Service bought
it back and preserved it as it
was in 1937.

His father Earl was a segregationist, as were nearly all whites in
rural Georgia, but his mother, Lillian, was a nurse and had more
progressive sentiments. There were only two white families in
Archery. Many of the town’s blacks worked as field hands on
their farm and were paid according to how much they harvested,
or by the task performed. Living nearby were Jack and Rachel
Clark, the blacks who helped run their farm. Rachel often picked
more than most of the field hands harvesting the crops. Nearly
all of Jimmy’s playmates were black children who lived nearby,
they loved to hunt, fish, and explore.

Restored Scarecrow on the Carter Farm / Cabin Scene with Washing on Fence, William Aiken Walker, around 1900

Jimmy Carter, with his dog Bozo in 1937, age 13.

His father Earl wanted
to be as self-sufficient
on his farm as
possible, he became a
“competent forester,
farmer, herdsman,
blacksmith, carpenter,
and shoemaker.”
Restored Carter farm blacksmith shop.

The Carters also had a small general store next to
their house, and if someone needed something
outside of the store hours, they could knock on
their door. They did not try to take advantage of
the blacks who patronized their store, and when
his father was on his deathbed, many of the black
families called on them, grateful for their many
kind deeds over the years.

Restored General
Store next to Carter
house on their farm,
National Park
Service restoration,
in Archery, near
Plains, Georgia

Jimmy remembers that he “had to leave
home for school sometimes before
daybreak, but in the afternoon, I helped
Jack milk eight cows. We always had
plenty of sweet milk, buttermilk, cream,
and butter in our house. Some of the
excess milk was made into chocolate and
vanilla drinks, put in eight-ounce bottles
with waxed cardboard tops, and placed
in iceboxes in grocery stores and filling
stations within a five-mile circle around
Plains. Daddy picked up the unsold
drinks every Monday and we fed them to
the hogs. Other milk was run through a
separator on our back porch, and the
pure cream was marketed through the
Suwanee store in town.”

The Carters did not own a tractor,
their more trusted field hands
plowed the fields with mules.
Jimmy Carter remembers, “There
was a lot of skill and strength
involved in the precise control of
plow blades as they skimmed by
the tender plants, loosening the
soil for increased growth and,
more important, controlling the
weeds and grass that could choke
out the crop and prevent it from
bearing fruit.”

Jimmy Carter continues, “There was
a proper way to train and control the
draft animals so they could do their
job and remain in good physical and
mental condition. In the often-
stifling heat, it was easy for them to
become overworked, which could
cause permanent loss of vigor or
even a quick death. Mules usually
had the good sense to refuse to walk
as they approached this danger
point of heat exhaustion, but horses
had much less intelligence about
self-protection.”

Jimmy Carter was first allowed break land in the
field with a plow when he was twelve, they started
the task before daybreak when it was cool. He
computed that he could plow the equivalent of
over twenty miles of furrows in a day’s plowing.

Typical
period farm
implements
on Carter
farm,
National
Park Service
restoration,
in Archery,
near Plains,
Georgia

Jimmy remembers, “We slaughtered
about twenty hogs a few times each
year on the coldest days, and Daddy
made sausage and rubbed the hams,
shoulders, and side meat with
preservative spices, then cured the
meat in the smokehouse behind our
home before selling it in our store.”
The Carters also sold wool sheared
from their sheep, down from their
geese, syrup from their sugarcane
crop, and catsup from their tomatoes.
In the early years, they had no
tractors, they grew and sold corn,
cotton, and peanuts as cash crops.

The Race Issue in Archery and Plains, GA

Jimmy Carter became aware of the race issue
when he started attending a school separate from
his black playmates. An excellent black school was
owned by Bishop Johnson, which was near the St
Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church in
Archery. He was bishop of five Northern states,
and Jimmy remembers once when he came home
to Archery, he came to speak with his father Earl.

Jimmy remembers, “It was not the
custom for a black person to come
to the front door of a white family’s
home, and when Bishop Johnson
wanted to speak with my father, he
conformed to the mores of the
time without acknowledging any
difference of status. His chauffeur
would” “bring the bishop to our
front door. He would blow the
horn, and my father would go
outside to talk to his guest, either
through the car window or with
both of them standing under a
large magnolia tree.”

His mother Lillian cared little
for these distinctions. “The
bishop’s son, Alvan, was a
student of Harvard and Mama’s
friend. When Alvan returned
home on vacation he would
come to our front door and
knock, and my mother would
welcome him for a
conversation in our living room
or on the front porch. If Daddy
was home at the time, he
would quietly leave the house
and go to the barn or
workshop until Alvan left.”

When the income from their farm improved, his
mother Lillian worked as a private nurse in the
homes of her patients, often for their black
neighbors for six dollars for a twenty-four-hour day.
When she was watching a patient, she would come
home at 10 PM, shower and wash her uniform, leave
notes assigning chores to her children, and return to
her patient’s home at 2 AM.

St Augustine and Monica, Time Magazine
Jimmy Carter and Lillian Carter, 1977

Jimmy remembers: “Her pay
was spasmodic during those
Great Depression days, usually
in the form of chickens, eggs,
pigs, or perhaps work around
our house and yard by
members of the family. It was
a time of hardship and
sharing, and she never let
ability to pay be a factor in
whom she served.”
Worker in WPA Lunchroom, Great Depression Era

Jimmy remembers, “Even when I was a child,
my mother was known within our community
for her refusal to accept any restraints on her
treatment of black citizens as equals.” Though
his father was more conservative, he “always
treated his African American customers and
employees with meticulous fairness and
respect, but he believed completely that the
two races should be segregated. Like all other
men that I knew in and around Plains, he
accepted this as a premise ordained by Bible
scriptures and confirmed by a century of Jim
Crow laws that were reversed a year after his
death by the Supreme Court.”
The hard life of poor blacks during the Great Depression

Jimmy Carter: School and Navy Years

Jimmy Carter had attended Plains High School, one
of the best schools in the state, where 250 white
students attended grades one through twelve.

Jimmy remembers the
school superintendent, Miss
Julia Coleman: “She
encouraged all of us to write
themes, learn about classical
music and art, read a long
list of books, debate, and act
in stage plays. Every day
began with a half hour of
chapel services, where we
heard announcements, sang
hymns, recited Holy
Scripture, and listened to a
brief religious homily.”

His parents insisted that Jimmy finish high school and attend
college, but since money was scarce, that meant they sought to
enlist him in the free military academies at West Point or
Annapolis. He enrolled first at the junior college, then Georgia
Tech, when he was unable to be considered for either military
academy. After joining the Naval Reserve Officer Training
program at college, he received an appointment to the Naval
Academy at Annapolis in 1943, during World War II, graduating
in 1946. Jimmy was a good student in the top ten percent of his
class, he read voraciously on history, literature, and all facets of
the US Navy.

Rosalynn Smith was a few years younger than him and was a
good friend of his younger sister Ruth. Jimmy was acquainted
with her as she had come to the house often but had never
talked to her until they had a movie date when he was home on
leave from Annapolis. He was immediately smitten with her, but
she would not marry until she graduated from junior college, as
she had promised her father on his deathbed. Jimmy by then had
also graduated, so they started housekeeping in Norfolk, Virginia,
where his ship was stationed. Their first son Jack was born.

Carter with Rosalynn
Smith and his mother
Lillian at his graduation
from the United States
Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland,
1946

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, and Jimmy’s
painting of his wife

Jimmy Carter Serves on Navy Submarines
USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine

After two years, Jimmy Carter applied for a special
career as a submariner, which required an intensive
six-month training course.

Jimmy remembers, “The instruction
was highly practical, as we learned
about the construction and diving
principles of the submarines
themselves; assembling, storing,
and firing torpedoes; operating the
different guns used when on the
surface; caring for the many large
electric batteries that propelled the
ship when submerged; and special
seamanship techniques in handling
the fragile vessel, with its strong
and watertight inner hull
surrounded by thin tanks, easily
damaged.” Replica of controls of submarine that Jimmy Carter served on.

In his devotions, Jimmy Carter reflected on the racial
attitudes he experienced in his youth, Harry
Truman’s executive order that halted segregation in
the armed forces, and the terrifying training on how
to escape from a disabled submarine a hundred feet
down.

Most of the time the World War II era diesel submarines
cruised on the surface, where their batteries could
recharge. Several years after the war a snorkel was
developed that allowed submarines to stay submerged
near the surface while the batteries recharged, otherwise
they could only submerge as long as the batteries had
power. At best they could cruise a hundred miles a day,
about as fast as the old sailing ships with a fair wind.
Jimmy Carter learned how hazardous duty could be
serving on these diesel submarines.

Chilean submarine Simpson honors the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 2004.

Jimmy Carter remembers, “I was
standing watch on the bridge about
two hours after midnight, with my feet
on the slatted wooden deck, when I
saw an enormous wave dead ahead.”
“The wave smothered our ship, several
feet above my head. I was ripped loose,
lifted up, and carried away from the
ship. I could only swim around in the
turbulent water, striving to reach the
surface. This was my first experience
with impending death, but when the
wave receded, I found myself on the
main deck directly aft of the bridge and
was able to cling to our five-inch gun.”
Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Annapolis

He scrambled back up the bridge and secured himself. If
the ship had been tilted, he could have been swept off the
boat and lost at sea in the dark tempest, and then he
would have never been President.
The storm also damaged the radio antennas on the
outside of their ship, they could receive but not transmit
messages, so they sailed back to port, a three-day journey.
The navy reported to the wives living in Hawaii that their
ship was lost, but Rosalyn was in Georgia and didn’t get
the message, fortunately.

Los Angeles-class submarine USS Scranton arrives for a routine port visit after operating in the Persian Gulf, 2007

Jimmy Carter Serves on Nuclear Submarine
USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine

After commanding his own submarine for two years,
Jimmy Carter applied and was accepted to serve on one of
the first two nuclear submarines. He details his
uncomfortable interview with the irascible Captain
Rickover, who even shortened the front legs of his chair so
he would feel like he was falling forward during the
interview! As in prior positions in the Navy, he
enthusiastically learned as much as he could about nuclear
propulsion, including taking studies in theoretical nuclear
physics.

President
Jimmy Carter
assists First
Lady Rosalynn
Carter as she
looks through
the periscope
of USS Los
Angeles,
1977.

In the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, water was circulated through
the nuclear reactor, this water-powered the turbines needed to generate
electricity. The power plant of the second nuclear submarine that Jimmy
Carter actually helped to design circulated liquid sodium through the
reactor that heated water for the turbines. Handling liquid sodium was
tricky, as it would be explosively reactive if it came into contact with
water, but it was much more efficient, and since it was a liquid metal, it
could be directed with electromagnets without moving parts, which
meant that the reactor was much more compact.
There were not many who were knowledgeable about how to handle
this new nuclear technology. He was asked to deal with a serious nuclear
accident.

Crewmen of nuclear submarine ex-USS NAUTILUS under tow.
USS NAUTILUS during 2022 overhaul

Jimmy Carter remembers, “When a
Canadian heavy water nuclear power
plant at Chalk River was destroyed
by accident in 1952, by a nuclear
meltdown and subsequent hydrogen
explosions, my crew was
volunteered by Rickover to assist
with the disassembly so it could be
replaced.” “The reactor core was”
“surrounded by intense radioactivity.
Even with protective clothing, each
of us would absorb the maximum
permissible doses with just ninety
seconds of exposure.”
NRX and Zeep buildings, Chalk River Laboratories, 1945

Jimmy Carter describes how they
faced this challenge. “An exact
mock-up of the damaged reactor
had been constructed on a nearby
tennis court, modified constantly
to represent at all times the exact
status of the real core
underground, including every
pipe, fitting, bolt, and nut.
Television cameras were focused
on the core, so that when any
changes were made, they were
duplicated on the mock-up.”
Sample removed from Reactor at Chalk River, Ontario

Jimmy Carter continues, “To
practice, the team members
would “don the heavy white
suites and masks, dash onto
the tennis court, and remove
as many bolts and pipes as
possible in ninety seconds.”
After each practice run, then
they would dash into the
disabled reactor and perform
these steps for real.
Sample removed from Reactor at Chalk River, Ontario

Jimmy Carter notes that the estimate of the amount
of radiation that could be safely tolerated was a
thousand times higher than it would be sixty years
later when scientists were more knowledgeable
about the risks. Today, the reactor would likely have
been simply sealed and monitored. This experience
gave a future President valuable experience on the
dangers of the nuclear age.

Chalk River Laboratories, run by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, near Chalk River, Ontario, Canada.

Jimmy Carter Retires to the Family Farm
Painting by Jimmy Carter

In April 1953 Jimmy Carter received a call that his father was seriously ill with
pancreatic cancer and would not survive for long. He was granted emergency family
leave to visit his father, Earl. He had become more active in the community, serving
in the state legislature. There was a steady stream of visitors expressing gratitude
for what he had done for their families, more than half were African American. He
learned he had been much more active in the community than he realized, serving
in the Lions Club and the Board of Education, and had spearheaded a drive to
improve vocational education.
After his father’s death, Jimmy Carter decided to resign his commission and move
back to Plains to run the family farm. The only person more upset than Captain
Rickover with his decision was his wife Rosalyn, who was a very happy Navy wife
who did not want to move back to rural Georgia.

Many Transitions In Rural Plains, Georgia

While Jimmy Carter was transitioning from a technologically demanding
naval career to move back to rural Georgia, where farms had yet to
transition from mules and horses to tractors, rural Georgia was also
experiencing the same racial transitions that the military was dealing
with. The year after his retirement, the Supreme Court issued the Brown
decision, mandating that public schools be desegregated with all
deliberate speed.
Jimmy Carter faced many financial challenges in making the farm
profitable. He devoted as much acreage as possible to a new peanut
variety, and with a normal rain was able to turn it around to become
profitable again, also greatly expanding his warehouse and processing
operations.

The schools were still segregated when he served on
the Sumter County Board of Education. There were
twenty-six small black schools because the county
did not want to pay to bus black children, the blacks
were sharing tattered textbooks, often sitting on tiny
stools or chairs, with a limited curriculum.
Absenteeism was rampant since the children were
compelled to work in the fields.

Freedmen's
School, James
Plantation, North
Carolina, 1866

Jimmy Carter remembers how segregation was
resisted. “With the advent of the civil rights
movement, the state legislature began to make an
effort to show that the ‘separate but equal’
national policy was becoming somewhat more
equal in order to preserve the separate. School
buses were finally authorized for black students,
but there was a legal requirement in Georgia that
their front fenders be painted black so everyone
would know that the passengers were not
precious white children. In 1955, with the first
stirrings of unrest, the Georgia Board of Educators
fired all teachers who were members of the
NAACP and directed that no teacher could serve
who did not support racial segregation.”

Jimmy Carter personally faced resistance, the only
gas station in town refused to sell him gasoline, so he
was forced to install an underground tank and
pumping station to store gasoline in bulk on his farm.
Once a sign was pasted on his office door saying:
COONS AND CARTERS GO TOGETHER. Although
segregation occurred in Georgia without the violence
in other states, Plains High School did not admit
black students until 1967.

The exhibits were
from the Carter
Presidential Library
in Atlanta, GA, and
his high school in
Plains, GA,
preserved by the
National Park
Service.

Jimmy Carter Runs For Georgia State Senate
Florida Governor Reubin Askew Greets Governor Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter decided to run for the Georgia State Senate when
the US Supreme Court, in Baker v Carr, ruled that all votes be as
equal as possible, that the rural areas could not have an undue
advantage. His new Senate district included seven counties, he
traveled to the county seats, visiting the newspaper offices and
radio stations, and speaking for any civic club that accepted his
request.
He had poll observers watching the counting in all counties. In
Quitman, the small county, the local political boss, Joe Hurst,
brazenly interfered in the election, requesting that all vote for his
opponent, and openly discarding the ballots of those who voted
with Carter.

Jimmy Carter remembers, “Hurst
did not seem disturbed that he
was being observed, even when I
demanded that he cease his illegal
tampering with the election. He
responded only that this was his
county, he was chairman of the
Quitman County Democratic Party,
and this was the way elections
were always conducted. As the
candidate, I was free to talk to his
friend the sheriff if I had a legal
complaint to register.”
Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Jimmy Carter continues, “I was
ahead by 75 votes when the
returns were received from the
other six counties, but in Quitman
County, the vote was 360 to 136
for my opponent, although only
333 people had voted. Homer
Moore was declared to be elected
by the news media. The state
Democratic Convention was
meeting in Macon that same week,
and I went there to register my
complaint, which was ignored.”
1876 cartoon illustrating opposition to black suffrage

Jimmy Carter then engaged the services of an attorney and called the editor of
the Atlanta Journal, who ran a series of front-page articles on this election theft.
In court, the judge threw out the ballots for Georgetown in Quitman County,
since there was not a secret ballot or voting machines there, which meant that
Jimmy Carter retained the lead, and was sworn into serving in the Georgia
Senate. During his term, he championed election reform and succeeded in
securing a four-year college in Southwest Georgia. He also discovered that his
wife Rosalyn enjoyed politics and was an effective speaker.
Several Georgia officeholders defected to the Republican Party to oppose
segregation, starting a trend that eventually resulted in the South going
Republican. His mother was involved in the 1964 Presidential campaign
supporting Lyndon Baines Johnson, or LBJ. Often her car was covered in graffiti
with minor vandalism and Jimmy’s sons were roughed up in school.

President
Jimmy Carter
at the White
House,
shaking hands
with Arkansas
governor-
elect Bill
Clinton

Jimmy Carter remembers, “Racial
attitudes were unclear in Plains, with
most of our white citizens remaining
silent. This changed when black
activists began to enter churches with
white congregations to demand
participation in worship services.” The
eleven deacons in his church “decided,
over my objection, to establish a policy
that black worshipers could not enter
Plains Baptist Church.”
Jimmy Carter at bat during a softball
game in Plains, GA, 1977

When this policy was put up
for a vote before the
congregation, fifty voted for it,
and only six voted against it.
Jimmy continues, “That
afternoon, many church
members called to say that
they agreed with me but didn’t
want to aggravate other
members of their families or
alienate their customers.”
Jimmy Carter giving a sermon at Plains Baptist Church

Jimmy Carter Runs For Georgia Governor
Florida Governor Reubin Askew Greets Governor Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was running for the US Congress when his Republican segregationist
opponent withdrew unexpectedly to run for governor, just as the Democratic
candidate also withdrew. Although he was assured of the Congressional seat with
no opposition, Jimmy Carter made a quick decision to run for Governor of Georgia
instead, assisted by Hamilton Jordan, who was then a student at the University of
Georgia. He ran a good race but lost the primary to Lester Maddox, an arch-
segregationist. Nobody won a clear majority in the general election, but the state
legislature awarded the governorship to Lester Maddox.
Jimmy Carter immediately began his 1970 campaign for the governorship, with
Hamilton Jordan as campaign manager. Like in his future Presidential campaign,
he was short of money, and Roslyn and his sons campaigned vigorously.

Florida Governor Reubin Askew Greets Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter remembers,
“By Election Day we
figured that Rosalyn and I
had shaken hands
personally with 600,000
Georgians. I received 48
percent of the Democratic
votes on the first ballot
and defeated Sanders in a
two-man runoff.”

In his Inauguration
Address, he
proclaimed “that the
time for racial
discrimination is over.
No poor, rural, weak,
or black person
should ever again
have to bear the
additional burden of
being deprived of the
opportunity of an
education, a job, or
simple justice.”

Jimmy Carter recounts that as Governor that
“more than three hundred state agencies and
departments were reduced to twenty-two, and
twenty issuers of state bonds were reduced to
one. Ever since that time, Georgia has enjoyed
Triple-A bond ratings. He persuaded many
foreign companies to invest in companies in
Georgia. He was standing out from among the
other state governors. Jimmy Carter
participated in dozens of campaigns across the
country, gaining four senators and giving the
Democrats two-thirds control of the House in
the wake of the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s
resignation.

Jimmy Carter's Youth and Navy Years: From Plowing With Mules to Nuclear Submarines

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Jimmy Carter's Youth and Navy Years: From Plowing With Mules to Nuclear Submarines