{"id":155807,"date":"2024-12-29T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=155807"},"modified":"2025-01-06T11:49:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T16:49:19","slug":"when-jimmy-carter-visited-bates-to-honor-the-greatness-of-americas-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2024\/12\/29\/when-jimmy-carter-visited-bates-to-honor-the-greatness-of-americas-character\/","title":{"rendered":"Recalling when Jimmy Carter visited Bates to honor the ‘greatness of America’s character’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirty-nine years ago, even a hurricane couldn\u2019t stay Jimmy Carter from a self-appointed duty: coming to Bates to dedicate a new archive in honor of his good friend, Edmund Muskie \u201936.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Hurricane Gloria roared up the East Coast in late September 1985, threatening to thwart the former president’s trip to Maine, Carter’s reaction was, basically, \u201cbring it on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing short of an absolute national catastrophe…could have prevented my coming to Bates College,\u201d Carter told an audience of more than 2,700 in Merrill Gymnasium on Sept. 28, 1985, during a dedication convocation for the official repository of Muskie\u2019s papers, now known as the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter died today at age 100 at his home in Plains, Ga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1985, Carter also used the occasional to speak warmly about another Bates friend, civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays, Class of 1920, who had died a year earlier. \u201cI want to thank this college for making it possible for Dr. Benjamin Mays to overcome the handicaps of white supremacy and racism to take his place among the prominent leaders of our nation and our world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy
Benjamin Mays and Jimmy Carter warmly greet each other outside Mays’ home in Atlanta, Ga., as Carter arrives to celebrate Mays’ 87th birthday<\/em> on Aug. 1, 1981. During Carter’s visit to Bates in 1985, he thanked Bates for its part in educating the future civil rights leader who became known as the “Schoolmaster of the Movement.” (Howard University)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his address, Carter described Muskie, a deeply admired colleague and friend who served as Carter\u2019s secretary of state from May 1980 to January 1981, as representing \u201cin a superb way the greatness of America\u2019s character.\u201d Muskie, he said, was \u201ca man who had a strong and beneficial impact on my own life and on that of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Merrill Gym, the speakers\u2019 platform was chock full of dignitaries. Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan was there, as was the entire Maine congressional delegation: representatives Olympia Snowe and John McKernan, and senators William Cohen and George Mitchell. Also on the platform was Frank Coffin \u201940, who, as a federal judge, swore in Muskie as Carter\u2019s new secretary of state in 1980. (Carter had visited Bates once before, giving a campaign speech in 1975.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if a visit to Bates by a former president didn\u2019t create enough hullabaloo and hubbub, there was Hurricane Gloria. To skirt the East Coast\u2013hugging storm, Carter first flew to Syracuse, N.Y., where the local newspaper photographed him walking through a hotel lobby in jogging shorts after a seven-mile run around Onondaga Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy
Former President Jimmy Carter embraces his friend and former secretary of state, Edmund S. Muskie ’36, during the Sept. 28, 1985, dedication of the Muskie Archives. Carter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the event. At left and right are Bates trustees Vincent McKusick ’44 and Bill Trafton. (Frank Siteman for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Carter arrived on campus to the sounds of chainsaws. From early morning, Bates community members, including students, took to the campus to clear fallen limbs before the big weekend\u2019s events, which included traditional Back to Bates festivities. Then-treasurer Bernie Carpenter wielded one of the saws and later wrote a thank-you letter to The Bates Student<\/em>. \u201cWithout that extra help [from students] our campus could not have looked as great as it did on Back to Bates Weekend for our alumni and honored guests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the convocation, Carter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and later had a tet-a-tet with then Dean of the Faculty Carl Straub about Straub\u2019s degree citation. The two met up, by chance, at the foot of the driveway to the President\u2019s House as they arrived from different directions to attend a lunch hosted by Bates President Hedley Reynolds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Straub and Carter turned to walk up the steep driveway, Carter suddenly took the dean\u2019s arm \u201cand stopped my walk,\u201d recalled Straub, who died in 2019. \u201cHe said he wanted to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Edmund
President Jimmy Carter looks on as Edmund Muskie is inaugurated as secretary of state on May 8, 1980. From left: Carter; Muskie’s daughter, Ellen Muskie Allen; his wife, Jane Muskie; and Judge Frank Coffin ’40. (Photo by Bill Fitzpatrick, The White House)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Straub, who was a religion professor who would return to the Bates classroom as the college\u2019s first Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, had piqued Carter\u2019s interest by invoking the environment twice in his citation for Carter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, he noted that \u201cthere is more than the Appalachian Trail which binds Maine to Georgia,\u201d such as a \u201ccommon heritage which rises from the simple decency of our people: We share a sense of what is good and just and beautiful.\u201d Second, the citation praised Carter for, among other achievements as the 39th U.S. president, the \u201cforesight to protect our natural environments, to preserve American wilderness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy
On President Carter’s last day in office, Jan. 20, 1980, he meets with, from left, Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown as they receive confirmation that the airplane carrying American embassy personnel held hostage in Iran had departed that country. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Carter, recalled Straub, wanted to talk about the Appalachian Trail. Not surprising: In 1978, Carter signed a law giving the federal government more power to protect, expand, and improve the trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Straub said he took a moment to thank Carter for his leadership in establishing the Denali National Park. (In 1978, Carter used executive authority to designate 56 million acres of Alaska wilderness as federally protected national monuments and in 1980 signed a law bringing the former McKinley National Park into a larger protected area named Denali National Park and Preserve.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy
President Jimmy Carter awards Secretary of State Edmund Muskie the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Jan. 16, 1981. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a proud if surreal moment for Straub, having a 10-minute private audience with a former president \u2014 \u201cwhile dignitaries waited at the top of the driveway to welcome [Carter].\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter\u2019s friendship with and admiration for Ed Muskie is well-chronicled in the public record, thanks in large part to the Muskie Archives. It shines through in the famous photo of the 5-foot-10 Carter hugging the 6-foot-4 Muskie during the archives dedication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it comes through in quieter ways, like the April 1981 photo showing Carter, decked out in fly-fishing gear and smiling that famous Carter grin, holding a big brown trout. On the back of the photo, which Carter sent to Muskie, he wrote, \u201cOn the opening day of the season, with my new Ed Muskie self-casting rod, I caught a lot of smaller ones, plus three over 18 inches. Thanks again. I\u2019m sure the Maine fishing will be even better. Jimmy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Jimmy
Jimmy Carter, decked out in fly-fishing gear and smiling that Carter grin, holds a big brown trout in this circa April 1981 photograph that he sent to Edmund Muskie ’36. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While less well-known, the late president\u2019s relationship with Mays was no less vital or authentic. For one, it reflected a shared Southern upbringing, wrote Damian Dominguez in a March 2023 story about the Mays\u2013Carter friendship for the Greenwood (S.C.) Index-Journal. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe two shared a common sensibility: Carter grew up a rural, Southern, Baptist farmer; Mays was the son of freed slaves who became sharecroppers and grew up a Baptist in rural Epworth,\u201d Dominguez reported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter and Mays probably got to know one another around 1970, Dominguez suggested. At the time, Mays, who had retired as president of Morehouse in 1967, was presiding over the Atlanta Board of Education \u2014 just as the federal courts ordered the desegregation of Georgia public schools \u2014 and Carter was ramping up his successful campaign for governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Mays pointed to Carter’s inaugural address as Georgia’s governor in 1971, when Carter said that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Within a few years, Mays, who had been advising U.S. presidents on racial issues since the 1950s, starting with Harry Truman, would announce his support of Carter for president, a decision that Mays explained during a talk at Bates in February 1977 during Black Arts Week. Then age 82, Mays spoke in the Chapel (and was introduced by Marcus Bruce ’77, then a Bates senior and now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mays explained that he had been getting letters asking why he had supported Carter’s run for president in 1976, so he took a moment to explain his reasons. Mays pointed to Carter’s inaugural address as Georgia’s governor in 1971, when Carter said that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy
Jimmy Carter speaks at the funeral for Benjamin Mays, held at Morehouse College on March 31, 1984. (Photograph by Johnny Crawford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From that moment, Mays took time to “study his record, read what he said and what his mother said about Jimmy’s early years. At a time when Negroes went to the back door [of a] white house… Jimmy Carter’s black friends went in and out of of the Carter house through the front door.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Carter served in the Navy, Mays told his Chapel audience, his voice sounding still strong on an old cassette tape recording, “one of his friends was Black, and when he visited Jimmy Carter’s home, he was treated as a man and was a guest in the Carter home. So when he made his statement about racism in his inaugural address [as] governor, I had reasons to believe.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mays went on to recount the various actions Carter took as governor, including integrating the powerful Board of Regents, which controls policy for Georgia’s public university system. “He meant what he said,” Mays concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

After Mays’ death on March 28, 1984, Carter praised him as \u201cmy personal friend, my constructive critic, and my close adviser.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Mays, known as the “Schoolmaster of the Movement” for mentoring Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, told the Chapel audience that in supporting Carter he was also supporting his own life’s work, to help lead the South’s emergence from its Jim Crow past. Mays spoke of growing up when “lynching was respected by the state and condoned by the church…. I knew segregation and denigration.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Mays’ death on March 28, 1984, Carter praised him as \u201cmy personal friend, my constructive critic, and my close adviser.\u201d Offering one of the eulogies at his funeral, held at Morehouse, Carter described Mays as a \u201cmonumental figure in the field of education and social justice. He inspired all who knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Mays’ funeral, when a speaker asked all the “Morehouse men” to stand, Carter stood with the many other Morehouse degree-holders \u2014 Carter had received an honorary degree from Morehouse in 1972. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was proud to stand as one of the Morehouse men,” Carter said in his remarks. “Dr. Mays told me that he was proud a Morehouse man was finally in the White House. He told me, ‘You may be the first, but you won’t be the last.'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We pay tribute to the late, remarkable Jimmy Carter, who died today at age 100, by recalling his historic visit to Bates in 1985 to honor his friend Edmund Muskie ’36 and to praise the greatness of another Bates friend, civil rights leader Benjamin E. Mays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":167010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,30,224,11009],"tags":[3145,6164],"class_list":["post-155807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-civic-engagement","category-society-culture","category-the-college","tag-edmund-s-muskie","tag-muskie-archives-and-special-collections-library"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155807"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167036,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155807\/revisions\/167036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}