Former President Jimmy Carter came to the Scenic City several times either as a presidential candidate or former president in a variety of roles.
And, although I did not try to track it down, he likely came to Chattanooga or North Georgia as well several times during his campaigns for Georgia governor in 1966 and 1970 and while governor from 1971-75.
He apparently did not drop into town while serving as president, as have several other recent chief executives, although he did make a statewide campaign visit for Democratic candidates in 1978.
With the help of the Chattanooga Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Department, I tried to look up a few of his visits in old newspaper stories on microfilm.
As his gubernatorial term was winding down and he could not run for re-election, he appeared at the Estes Kefauver dinner at the Read House on Aug. 22, 1974, and also spoke at the Tivoli. He said in a Chattanooga News-Free Press story written by Tom Griscom that his political future was uncertain, but that he would not have sought re-election as governor if allowed to.
“I have accomplished everything I set out to do,” he said.
And as the Watergate building break-in investigation had resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon just two weeks earlier, Mr. Carter said that while he did not agree with what all Mr. Nixon had done, he did not think he should be further punished.
He also praised the work of former senators Estes Kefauver and Al Gore Sr., the latter of whom was also in attendance, in helping to bring further respect to Southern politicians.
Mr. Carter at the time before becoming president was not the Democratic politician in town with the most eyes on him. That honor belonged to Ray Blanton, who would soon be elected governor of Tennessee before a scandal would stain his governorship.
That day, Mr. Carter had also attended the funeral for former TV news broadcaster and Democratic congressional nominee Mort Lloyd at the Brainerd Church of Christ at 4203 Brainerd Road, according to Local 3 News broadcaster David Carroll’s book, “Hello Chattanooga!” Mr. Lloyd had recently died in a private plane crash after securing the nomination.
Although Mr. Carter said during his 1974 visit that he did not know what his future held, by 1975, he did. He had decided to run for president.
As a result, on June 20, 1975, he campaigned at the Downtown Sheraton at 509-21 Chestnut St. and apparently one or two other places as the race was just getting started. He said in the story by Mr. Griscom that President Gerald Ford had not done anything right in the White House and that he wanted to bring a fresh face to Washington.
He also said his roots in being from the Deep South state of Georgia should not be a detriment as it might have been in the past. “There has been no instance of prejudice against me for being from the South,” he said.
While George Wallace of Alabama at the time was considered the leading candidate, Mr. Carter said that the governor could never get a large percentage of the vote and he felt confident in his chances, saying he was in the race to win. He also said he would select a vice president who would add geographical balance to the ticket, which he ended up doing with Walter Mondale from Minnesota.
Wife Rosalynn Carter also came to Chattanooga to campaign for him in July 1975, and Emily McDonald of the Chattanooga Times had a sit-down interview with her. Ms. Carter told Ms. McDonald that they both usually traveled separately on the campaign trail for logistical efficiency.
She also said daughter Amy was on a youth trip to New York and Canada with Rosalynn’s mother serving as her chaperone, but Amy was armed with some campaign mementoes to hand out.
Mr. Carter during this time had an appeal or maybe kind manner that almost surprisingly drew him to a lot of people. One of them was my late mother, Mrs. Velma Shearer. Although she normally voted Republican as did my father, Dr. C. Wayne Shearer, she had met him somewhere, perhaps at an optometric gathering in another town, and took a liking to him as a candidate.
As a result, she announced to our family early on that she was supporting him for president, and she continued to do so.
We also traveled down to Plains during a Jacksonville Beach trip in 1976 and she met his mother, Ms. Lillian Carter.
While Mr. Carter surprised a lot of people by getting elected in a close race against Mr. Ford, whom he had debated in the first presidential debate series since 1960, being an outsider helped him.
Unfortunately, as has been well documented, he struggled as president due in part to economic and energy challenges and problems after a revolting Iran took some Americans hostage. He did manage to create the peace accords with Israel and Egypt.
In May 1981 shortly after he left office, I had a chance to see President Carter in person when I was a University of Georgia student, and he spoke at the University of Georgia’s law school Law Day program on Old Campus. I remember I got out of bed at my off-campus apartment right before his morning talk and, wearing a T-shirt, managed to get within 100 yards or so of him. I remember he joked when he started, “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” in reference to losing the election in a landslide to the optimistic and naturally communicative Ronald Reagan.
I believe that was the only time I saw him in person, although he had also been at the Georgia-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl in New Orleans a few weeks before in a game I had also attended in person.
Perhaps his most interesting visit to Chattanooga came on May 28, 1985. He was raising money for the operation of his presidential library scheduled to be built and his policy center at Emory University. He also hoped to connect his operations with a number of other universities, including UTC.
In a previously unannounced visit, he and his entourage stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo after arriving by motorcade the day before from Atlanta. He attended a dinner party with investment counselor friend L. Hardwick Caldwell Jr. and his wife, Harriet, at their Signal Mountain home.
He also met with Benwood Foundation officials on the 16th floor of American National Bank, with Rick Montague and the Lyndhurst Foundation officials on the seventh floor of the Tallan Building, and went to the Provident (now Unum) building to meet with Hugh O. Maclellan Sr. of the Maclellan Foundation.
He then had lunch with about 15 invitees at the Mountain City Club on Chestnut Street.
I was working for the Chattanooga News-Free Press then, and apparently the Chattanooga Times had been tipped off he was to be in town, and reporter Bill Dedman (one of my Baylor School classmates, who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting) covered and wrote about his movements throughout town.
But early that afternoon in the newsroom of the Free Press, we somehow were alerted by a caller saying that the former president was at the Mountain City Club. Veteran reporter Ronnie Moore hustled down there and was able to get an interview with the president that ran in the next day’s paper, and the entire newsroom felt proud we had been able to get a story in those competitive days, too, despite not being notified.
Mr. Carter would indeed have a nice library and center and would use that to help launch what most people consider the most admirable career of an ex-president in U.S. history.
The diverse Mr. Carter would also come to Chattanooga on Aug. 15, 1986, for the weigh-in at the UTC Arena during the Bass Masters Classic professional fishing tournament.
And he and Rosalynn would also be in town for the Oct. 18, 2014, Kefauver dinner at the Chattanooga Convention Center while their grandson, Jason, was running unsuccessfully for governor of Georgia.
And as Mr. Carroll has documented in his book and elsewhere, the former president also made a vacation visit with his extended family to the Chattanooga Choo Choo in 1991, and Mr. Carroll was able to get an interview with him after being tipped off.
Yes, Chattanooga managed to have several stops on Mr. Carter’s long journey through life serving the nation’s highest office and trying to continuously involve himself in some of life’s highest callings with a choo choo train-like energy.
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Jcshearer2@comcast.net