Born in the U.S.A.: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory

3. Commemorating Jimmy Carter and Southern Rural Life in Plains, Georgia

P 73 p 3P If remembering President Kennedy’s birth flummoxed federal historians eclipsed by his mother’s long shadow, imagine then the challenge of doing good history at the birthplace of a living president. This is precisely the situation that Zachary J. Lechner describes in Plains, Georgia, where former President Jimmy Carter was born and where he still lives today. From his vantage point as a historian of twentieth-century American culture, Lechner finds strengths and weaknesses in the stories told at the Carter National Historic Site. The birthplace paradigm, he contends, has enabled interpretation there to refute the “naturalness” of racism. And, at the same time, Lechner wonders why, if we are to believe that being born in Plains explains Carter’s adult successes, it didn’t catapult his neighbors to similar heights. A weighing here of competing memories suggests that birthplace commemoration, unless situated in the broadest historical context, risks obscuring the raw complexity of adult lives. Commemorating Jimmy Carter and Southern Rural Life in Plains, Georgia ZACHARY J. LECHNER One of the defining characteristics of any historical birthplace is the connection between person and place, particularly the notion that one must know where an individual comes from in order to understand him or her. This is certainly the message in Plains, Georgia (population 776), the birthplace and current home of President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn.1 Thanks to the efforts of local citizens, the Georgia congressional delegation, and Carter himself, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1987 establishing the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site 74 p ZACHARY J. LECHNER and Preservation District, which is managed by the National Park Service (NPS). Besides the buildings and property administered by the NPS, much of the town is federally protected as part of the Jimmy Carter National Preservation District. It encompasses the historic downtown area and other locations important to the lives of the Carters. With the support of the Plains community, NPS officials have created a unique commemoration of the life of Jimmy Carter and the southern rural and small-town existence from which he emerged. The NPS has chosen an expansive approach, forgoing a narrow interpretation of the building in which Carter was born (Wise Sanitarium, a hospital). The agency and sympathetic locals have maintained the integrity of Plains’s historical appearance and preserved locations integral to telling the story of Jimmy Carter’s rise from a boy growing up on a farm in Archery, Georgia, just outside Plains, during the Great Depression, to the most powerful man in the world. The NPS is thus dedicated to interpreting the entire locale in which Carter came of age. As Georgia Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, a strong proponent of the site’s establishment , explained in 1987, “in preserving only the homes of major historical figures, we tend to lose much of the essence of ordinary life that would illuminate those times. We may not realize what made the ‘typical’ places unique until they have been so changed that they have become unrecognizable.”2 Although the NPS’s interpretation is most influential in shaping visitors’ experiences in Plains, the federal government is not alone in commemorating Carter and the town. The former president himself has frequently participated in, and often collaborated with, both federal and local commemorations. The Plains Historical Preservation Trust, a group in which the Carters serve in leadership roles, has been a valuable ally to the site, helping to raise money for park efforts and serving as a de facto friends group. Through its book, History of Plains, Georgia, and its public events, the Trust presents a relentlessly positive portrait of Jimmy Carter and Plains that focuses on white history and draws little involvement from black residents. President Carter has also played a key role in assisting the NPS with invaluable information, and he has served as a highly prominent booster of local history. In some respects, the NPS’s depiction of Jimmy Carter and southern rural and small-town life in Plains errs by glossing over controversial Commemorating Jimmy Carter P 75 elements in the Georgian’s pre-presidential political career. Like the Trust, the NPS fails to voice adequately the black community’s historical experience. Despite these drawbacks, the NPS succeeds in overcoming many of the challenges of interpreting a living historical figure and his environment. And it does so while preserving historical complexity. The Park Service’s...