Jimmy Carter position held member of the Georgia State Senate
Early political career (1963–1971)
Georgia state senator (1963–1967)
As racial tension inflamed in Plains by the 1954 Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Carter favored racial tolerance and integration, but often kept those feelings to himself to avoid making enemies. By 1961, he began to speak more prominently of integration as a member of the Baptist Church and chairman of the Sumter County school board. In 1962, Carter announced his campaign for an open Georgia State Senate seat fifteen days before the election. Rosalynn, who had an instinct for politics and organization, was instrumental to his campaign. Early counting of the ballots showed Carter trailing his opponent Homer Moore, but this was the result of fraudulent voting orchestrated by Joe Hurst, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Quitman County. Carter challenged the election result, which was confirmed fraudulent in an investigation. Following this, another election was held, in which Carter won against Moore as the sole Democratic candidate, with a vote margin of 3,013 to 2,182.The civil rights movement was well underway when Carter took office. He and his family had become staunch John F. Kennedy supporters. Carter remained relatively quiet on the issue at first, even as it polarized much of the county, to avoid alienating his segregationist colleagues. He did speak up on a few divisive issues, giving speeches against literacy tests and against an amendment to the Georgia Constitution which, he felt, implied a compulsion to practice religion. Carter entered the state Democratic Executive Committee two years into office, where he helped rewrite the state party's rules. He became the chairman of the West Central Georgia Planning and Development Commission, which oversaw the disbursement of federal and state grants for projects such as historic site restoration.When Bo Callaway was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1964, Carter immediately began planning to challenge him. The two had previously clashed over which two-year college would be expanded to a four-year college program by the state, and Carter saw Callaway—who had switched to the Republican Party—as a rival that represented aspects of politics he despised. Carter himself was re-elected to a second two-year term in the state Senate, where he chaired its Education Committee and sat on the Appropriations Committee toward the end of the term. He contributed also to a bill expanding statewide education funding and getting Georgia Southwestern State University a four-year program. He leveraged his regional planning work, giving speeches around the district to make himself more visible to potential voters. On the last day of the term, Carter announced his run for the House of Representatives. However, Callaway decided to run for Georgia's governorship, and Carter would abandon his own efforts, also deciding to run for the governorship.
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