Like many Americans, I was “introduced” to Jimmy Carter in 1976. That year, my mother, Thelma Suggs, campaigned for and voted for Jimmy Carter.
We lived in Brooklyn at the time and I was about nine years old. I vaguely remembered Nixon and Watergate but couldn’t really comprehend what it was.
I knew Gerald Ford was the current president, but my main image of him was from Chevy Chase’s vicious parodies of him as a klutz in the early days of “Saturday Night Live.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Aside from serving on a few boards in our apartment building, my mother wasn’t otherwise politically active. But she clung to her Southern roots after arriving in New York City from North Carolina in the 1960s. She admired Carter’s generosity of spirit, humility, honesty, integrity, work ethic, determination and, most importantly, his strength of character.
Carter meant something to her. And therefore he meant something to me.
So on Nov. 2, 1976, my mother, brother and I walked to P.S. 241 at 976 President St. in Brooklyn and cast our ballot for Jimmy Carter to become the 39th President of the United States. From that moment, Jimmy Carter became my man.
Credit: Ernie Suggs
Credit: Ernie Suggs
I would go on to admire Bill Clinton, who became president when I entered manhood; George W. Bush, who I probably would enjoy having a beer with (if I indulged); and of course, Barack Obama stands alone. But my boyhood image of what a president of the United States should look like and stand for was Jimmy Carter.
This is a story that I often shared with the former president, who would always patiently listen and smile as I recounted it to him dozens of times.
I actually can’t remember the first time I personally met Jimmy Carter. I have been a reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for more than 27 years and those initial meetings often become a blur.
For many years, I was the backup on Carter coverage. I was well behind superstars like Jill Vejnoska, Elizabeth Kurylo and Moni Basu, so my first meeting with him was probably for an event one of them couldn’t cover.
Maybe I don’t remember it because in some ways, I have known Carter all of my life. He always seemed part of the fabric.
That first meeting, whenever it was, was followed by dozens of meetings, interviews and simple conversations as I eventually became one of the primary reporters covering President Carter, Rosalynn Carter, the Carter Center and Plains.
While mostly professional, those conversations were undergirded by a genuine kinship that I think was built on mutual admiration and respect. I was always amused when he would call and leave a message and say, “Hello, this is Jimmy Carter,” as if I didn’t know.
Since President Carter’s death on Dec. 29 at the age of 100, I have been invited to appear on several national newscasts to talk about his legacy and about my many years of covering and knowing him.
I am often introduced as “longtime AJC race reporter and Jimmy Carter friend….”
I dare not correct the interviewer, but I am kind of uncomfortable by the word “friend.”
Let me explain.
As a reporter, job number one is to be objective. And with objectivity comes fairness. Without that, you are nothing.
To be considered a “friend” of Jimmy Carter could scratch away some of the veneer I try to hold as a hardnose journalist — whatever that means.
As a journalist, there are people we cover that we like and people we cover that we hate. In a perfect world, they should never know how you feel.
But the world is not perfect. I mainly cover civil rights. Meaning that I spent most of my career at the AJC covering people like John Lewis, Coretta Scott King, C.T. Vivian, Joseph Lowery and Andrew Young.
I loved every one of them.
On special occasions, I still wear C.T. Vivian’s purple Brooks Brothers tie that his family gave me after he died in 2020.
I wrote a book with Andrew Young.
Some might be surprised that I was married once but not surprised that Joe Lowery performed the ceremony.
They were and are friends. And when I think about it, so was President Carter.
As I mentioned, whenever I talked to President Carter, I would tell him the story about my mother. He always asked me what my mother’s name was as if to recall her as one of his New York City campaign workers.
For some reason, the last time I met with President Carter, I did not mention my mother. Maybe I was distracted. Maybe I felt I had told him that story ad nauseam.
As I got up to leave, we shook hands, he asked me: “How is your mother doing?”
I have to admit, his question jolted me.
At the time, my mother had just been diagnosed with the early stages of frontotemporal dementia. For those who have had the misfortune of knowing someone who has had that, you know that it is slow and horrible thing.
He sat me back down and told me that if I ever needed anything, to let him know. He reminded me of the work that Rosalynn Carter, who would later be diagnosed with dementia, was doing in the field of mental health.
I told him more about my mother and he spoke up again.
“Can she take a phone call?” he asked.
I dialed the number and the 39th President of the United States talked to my mother. In the years that followed, as her memory continued to fade, she remembered that conversation.
Aside from family members, no one knew that story until it came out on one of my television interviews. It wasn’t a secret, but one of those private family moments. But it was also an example of who Jimmy Carter was. A friend.
A few years later, even as he was getting sicker, when I asked President Carter to write the foreword to my first book, “The Many Lives of Andrew Young,” he agreed. Soon after, I was invited to join Carter Old Farts Amiable Discussions, a group of old Carter friends, political allies and confidants who meet regularly by Zoom and daily through emails.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Since I became the primary Carter reporter, I have been on edge for about a decade — always waiting for the call, taking my laptop with me wherever I went in case news broke and always ready.
Fun fact: I actually let my guard down last weekend. I had planned a quick New Year’s vacation trip and for the first time since probably 1976, I got my hair braided. Imagine trying to navigate the most important television appearances of my life while looking like prime D’Angelo?
But I was ready when Chip Carter called me at 3:44 p.m. on Sunday and simply said: “Dad died two minutes ago.”
The journalist in me quickly called the newsroom, so that we could break the story before anyone else.
Then the person in me sat down and cried.
Credit: Ernie Suggs
Credit: Ernie Suggs
I find myself in Plains today, Carter’s small town that I have visited many times.
I’ll get a scoop of peanut butter ice cream, buy some fried peanuts, pick up some of jars of homemade peanut butter, hug Jill Stuckey and endure a volley of bad jokes from Philip Kurland, as the world says its final goodbyes to President Carter.
He will buried on a small plot next to Rosalynn.
I am not big on coincidences and what numbers mean, but there has to be something behind this right?
Today’s date is Jan. 9, 2025.
On this date, Thelma Suggs, who introduced me to Jimmy Carter in the Bicentennial year of 1976, would have been 76 years old.
Farewell President Carter.
Happy Birthday Mommy.
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