Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter smiles during a book signing event in 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Jimmy Carter would chart a new course for the state at the start of his four-year term serving as Georgia’s governor when he used his inauguration address in 1971 to assert a public stand against the racial segregation that still maintained its popularity among many white Georgians.
Carter’s iconic speech that explicitly declared the end of racial discrimination against Black people and other minorities would become a symbol of Carter’s philosophy during and after a political career that saw him rise to the prominence of becoming U.S. president, before his presidency ended four years later when he lost his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan in 1980…