The Making of a President

Yesterday we went to Plains, Georgia hometown of President Jimmy Carter. This tiny town, population 573, was where Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosaylnn were born, lived most of their lives, died and are buried. I gained some understanding of how this man developed such strong moral character. I think I am happy that he did not live to see what is happening now to our country, which would cause him great pain. The above photo is the one block that is downtown Plains. Down the street in the background is a peanut processing plant and in the other direction is the tiny train depot that Jimmy Carter used as his presidential campaign headquarters.

The Carter campaign chose this tiny, rustic train depot as national campaign headquarters in Plains because it was the only available building with a bathroom.

Peanut processing plant in downtown Plains, Georgia.

The Jimmy Carter National Historical Park consists of Carter’s boyhood home and farm. The old high school is now the visitor center.The house the Carters lived in most recently and the grave sites on the property will be part of the National Park as well.

The Plains High School now serves as the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park Visitor Center and zMuseum. Jimmy and Rosalynn both graduated from this school.

Jimmy graduated from this school in 1941. It was called the high school but served white students from grade 1-11. There was no 12th grade. In 1941 schools were racially segregated. I believe Sumter County has always been a majority Black county, so the majority of children had to attend far inferior schools. Jimmy Carter served on the Sumter County School Board after Brown vs the Board of Education supreme court case that desegregated schools. He had to tackle the question of school consolidation and desegregation. It took him a while to decide to attack desegregation head-on. Once he did, it gave him valuable lessons that made him a much better Governor and President. Here is an interesting “ Study of Segregation, Politics, and Public Education in Sumter County, Georgia, 1930s-1970s” if you would like more information.

Jimmy Carter National Historical Park Display

March 1, 2025 0

Americus,GA:

Two days ago we arrived in Americus, GA, a pretty little town (population: 15,703) just nine miles from Plains, GA, the home town of our 37th President Jimmy Carter.

We met the former Americus Mayor Bill McGowan and his wife, while stopping in for lunch at the Buffalo Cafe in Plains. They were very friendly and very humble- he had lots to say about his downtown hotdog joint and his kids but he did not mention that he was elected in 2016 to the Georgia House of Representatives as a Democrat. In fact, he managed to flip the House Blue with his win.

We learned that a favorite hotdog topping is a coleslaw and chili combo. Next time we are in Americus at lunchtime we will have to give it a try!

Here are some interesting facts about Americus. I suggest you click on the inks for some very interesting stories:

Habitat for Humanity was founded in Americus and the international headquarters is there.
Charles A. Lindbergh bought his first airplane and made his first solo flight there during a two-week stay in May 1923.
Souther Field (now Jimmy Carter Regional Airfield) was used for British Royal Air Force pilot training (1941–1942) as well as US pilot training before ending the war as a German prisoner of war camp
Shoeless Joe Jackson served as the field manager for the local baseball team after his banishment from professional baseball
Americus in one of 29 places that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed.
Koinonia Farm, an interracial Christian community, was organized near Americus in 1942 by Clarence Jordan. Its interracial nature occasioned much opposition from local residents.
The Leesburg Stockade incident occurred in 1963 when a group of African-American girls, aged 12 to 15, were arrested in Americus after trying to buy movie tickets at a theatre’s whites-only window as a form of civil protest.

You can read more about the Americus Movement, a lesser known part of the civil rights movement here.

February 28, 2025 0

Cuthbert, Georgia: A Rural Georgia Town

We enjoyed driving less traveled roads through Georgia today. We stopped for gas in Cuthbert, Georgia (population 3,143), on the Jefferson Davis Highway. It is 100 miles from the gulf coast, 100 miles from the closest city (Montgomery, Al) and not near, it seems, anything at all. The City of Cuthbert, incorporated in 1831, is the county seat of Randolph County, which has a total population of 6,287 people. Most of the buildings, built on Cuthbert town square around 1890, are still there. One surprising thing about Cuthbert is that there are no obvious chain restaurants or motels, except for the ever present Dollar General. Is there a rural town in America that does not have a Dollar General?

According to Wikipedia, the county was developed for cotton plantations, the major commodity crop, and the rural area had a high proportion of enslaved Black workers. Today the Cuthbert population is still 80% Black. The main occupation now is food production as there is a large chicken processing plant owned by Tyson in Cuthbert. Poultry is now the largest sector of Georgia’s agricultural production since the Georgia cotton industry was decimated by the Boll Weevil. The insect first swept into GA in 1915 in dust clouds from the west. By the early 1920s, it had destroyed over 60 % of Georgia’s cotton crops.(New Georgia Encyclopedia)

The Cuthbert Water Tower, erected in 1895, has the distinction of being the only water tower in the middle of a federal highway. It is located in the middle of US Highway 82 (Jefferson Davis Highway) and defines the skyline of Cuthbert. For many years, people believed those who drank water from the tower would either stay or return to Cuthbert.

Cuthbert is the birthplace of boxer Larry Holmes, NFL player Rosey Grier and jazz and swing musician Fletcher Henderson Jr. (1897-1952). Another famous person who grew up in Cuthbert heard of is Winfred Rembert, a Black artist who used hand-tools and shoe dye on leather canvases. During a civil rights march in the 1960s, Rembert was arrested without being charged. He spent seven years on a chain gang and survived a lynching.You can watch a short documentary film about Rembert called All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert. His memoir, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South, was published posthumously in September 2021 and won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

March 2, 2024 0

The Big Peach

This is the first time we have been to Atlanta, Georgia. Here are some of our observations:

• Atlanta looks like a modern city with few historic buildings. Of course, this is in part because of Sherman’s march to the sea during the Civil War, when many buildings in Atlanta were burnt to the ground, although it is a myth that Sherman burned the whole city. Lack of historical preservation laws and aggressive urban renewal razed the rest.

• Atlanta is a majority minority city with Black or African American making up 48% of the population in 2021, Whites 39, Asian 5%, Latino 2%.

• There are a lot of hot tricked out cars here, that you don’t see in Northern cities we visited. We also learned what a slingshot motorcycle is.

• Good food can be had in Atlanta. Last night we dined at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, a famous soul food restaurant established in 1945. The walls are lined with pictures of celebrities who have dined there from James Brown to Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden. The best fried chicken, collard greens and peach cobbler I have ever had.

February 26, 2024 0