By Scott A. Grant
mail@floridanewsline.com
On Saturday, May 4, 1974, Jimmy Carter took the podium to address the distinguished alumni of the University of Georgia School of Law. Carter was governor of Georgia at the time. In addition to the alumni there were various guests and media and Ted Kennedy. Carter began his speech by joking about the fact that tickets to Kennedy’s speech cost more than tickets to his own.
Carter then proceeded to rip apart a system of justice practiced in Georgia and other parts of the country that favored the rich and prominent at the expense of the poor and indigent. He talked about the system being designed to uphold the status quo. In front of these rich and powerful people, Carter decried his belief that the powerful and influential had “carved out for themselves … a privileged position in society.” Today, many might find those words ring truer than they did in 1974.
Jimmy Carter then told a room full of lawyers and judges that there were substantial inequities in the criminal justice system of Georgia. He told a story about a prisoner who cooked for him in the governor’s mansion who had been sentenced to pay a fine of $750 or serve seven years in prison. He talked about drug crimes and a recent bill that had decriminalized drunkenness in the state. He suggested that half of the people in the Georgia prison system did not belong there. That they were there because they were poor. “I don’t know,” he drawled, “it may be that poor people are the only ones who commit crimes. I don’t think so. But they’re the only ones that serve prison sentences.”
He also talked about an earlier time when Blacks were denied the vote based on a 30-question test that was administered with a “smirk.” Questions, he said, that no one in that room of distinguished law school alumni could answer. He added that no one would want to go back to those days. That statement must have hung heavy on the assembled. Certainly, there were some, if not many, in the room who would be eager to return to that time. Carter had succeeded Lester Maddox as governor. Lester Maddox was the current lieutenant governor of the state. Maddox had risen to prominence for violently refusing to serve African Americans in his Atlanta restaurant.
Carter challenged the group with finding ways to improve a system that was substantively unfair, a system they had helped to perpetuate. He ended by reminding us all “that the course of human events, even the greatest historical events, are controlled by the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment and unselfishness and compassion and love and idealism of the common ordinary people.” The distinguished alumni sat there in stunned silence.
The speech might have been forgotten and dismissed as the ravings of a peanut farmer. Carter himself might have been relegated to the waste basket of history. Except for the fact that there was a reporter in the room from Rolling Stone magazine. His name was Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson, the inventor of Gonzo journalism, was following Kennedy and had no intention of listening to Carter or reporting what he had to say. But, when the governor quoted Bob Dylan, he put down his Wild Turkey and took out his tape recorder.
Hunter called the speech a “king hell bastard of a speech that rang every bell in the room” and described Carter as “ruthless.” Thompson wrote an article endorsing Carter for Rolling Stone called “Jimmy Carter and the Great Leap of Faith.” That article and the support of musicians like the Allman Brothers, from Jacksonville, galvanized disgruntled voters and propelled Jimmy Carter into the White House 18 months later.
Scott A. Grant is a local author and pop historian. He welcomes your comments at scottg@standfastic.com.
