A young Jimmy Carter was no stranger to gospel music growing up in the small rural town of Plains, Georgia during the ’20s and early ’30’. He heard it sung by Black tenant farmers working on his father’s land. He heard it too during 24-hour gospel sings that occurred every fifth Sunday, where quartets, local and distant gospel groups, different denominations and communities came together to rejoice around prayer, all-day-singing, and a meal. This love of gospel music, along with a deep religiosity, was implanted in Carter’s heart at a young age and stayed with him throughout his lifetime. And you could tell by the way the late president’s face would light up that his connection to not only gospel music, but also rock, folk, country, jazz, and rhythm and blues ran through the deepest parts of his soul.
Jimmy Carter’s deep connection to music, especially gospel, was more than just a personal joy — it was a reflection of his broader worldview and presidency. Music served as both solace and strategy, uniting Americans across divides of race, region and politics. Carter used music as a powerful tool to embody and promote his vision of unity, human rights, and healing — a vision that resonates even more poignantly as the nation reflects on his legacy following his death on Sunday at 100.
In the late summer of 1979, partway through his third year as president, Jimmy Carter hosted an afternoon of gospel music at the White House. Blankets covered the grass on the South Lawn as over 800 attendees ate fried chicken, potato salad and coleslaw on paper plates.
“Gospel music is really rural music from the country. It has both Black and white derivations; it’s not a racial kind of music,” President Carter said to the crowd. “But I think it’s important to recognize that gospel music is derived from deep within the heart of human beings — it’s a music of pain, a music of longing, a music of searching, a music of hope, and a music of faith.”
Since he entered hospice care in February 2023, a lot has been shared about his life. The first president to be born in a hospital was a man of many anomalies. He grew up without electricity and running water in the segregated south, yet most of his friends before he left for the Naval Academy in 1943 were African Americans. He was a peanut farmer, a nuclear engineer, a carpenter and a poet whose simple writing illuminated the historical reckoning and soul of America.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Variety