An Hour Before Daylight; Memories of a Rural Boyhood
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. First Printing. Hardcover. 284, [4] pages. Illustrations. Index. DJ has some sticker residue. Signed on the title page by the author ("J. Carter"). Jimmy Carter's Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm, before the civil rights movement that changed it and the country. James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center. Carter, a Democrat raised in rural Georgia, was a peanut farmer who served two terms as a Georgia State Senator, from 1963 to 1967, and one as the Governor of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975. He was elected President in 1976, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford in a relatively close election; the Electoral College margin of 57 votes was the closest at that time since 1916. His presidency has drawn medium-low responses from historians, with many considering him to have brought greater accomplishment with his post-presidency work. He set up the Carter Center in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights. He has also traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Additionally, Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project. He has been the longest-retired president in American history since September 2012, when he surpassed Herbert Hoover. He is also the first president to mark the 40th anniversary of his election. Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy, offering an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and a strict segregationist who treated black workers with respect and fairness; his strong-willed and well-read mother; and the five other people who shaped his early life, three of whom were black. Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation and recounts a classic, American story of enduring importance. In an American story of enduring importance, Jimmy Carter re-creates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm, before the civil rights movement that changed it and the country. In what is sure to become a classic, the bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy. Along the way, he offers an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and strict segregationist who treated black workers with his own brand of "separate" respect and fairness, and his strong-willed and well-read mother, a nurse who cared for all in need -- regardless of their position in the community. Carter describes the five other people who shaped his early life, only two of them white: his eccentric relatives who sometimes caused the boy to examine his heritage with dismay; the boyhood friends with whom he hunted with slingshots and boomerangs and worked the farm, but who could not attend the same school; and the eminent black bishop who refused to come to the Carters' back door but who would stand near his Cadillac in the front yard discussing crops and politics with Jimmy's father.
Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation. An Hour Before Daylight is destined to stand with other timeless works of American literature. Condition: Very good / Good.
Keywords: Jimmy Carter, Georgia, American South, Depression, Sharecroppers, Tenant Farmers, Segregation, Country Life, African-Americans, Peanuts, Sharecroppers, Racism, Race Relations, Willis Wright
ISBN: 0743211936
[Book #55778]
Price: $175.00