An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood

An Hour Before Daylight (2001) is a memoir by Jimmy Carter. The memoir recounts the former US president’s upbringing in rural Georgia during the Great Depression. Carter introduces readers to the community of Plains, Georgia, where he was raised, sharing stories of his family, the farm, and the complex racial and economic landscapes of the South during the 1920s and 1930s. The memoir not only explores Carter’s early experiences with poverty, community, and racial segregation, but also sheds light on the values of hard work, resilience, and integrity that shaped his future policies and presidency.

This study guide uses the Kindle edition of the Simon & Schuster eBook.

Content Warning: The memoir contains outdated and offensive words for Roma and African American people that were in use in the South in the early part of the 20th century.

Summary

Carter describes the geography of the two Georgia towns in which he grew up. Plains, where he was born and later attended school, had flat, rich land. Archery, where his family’s extensive cotton and peanut farm was located, had some good soil but it ended beyond the Carter farm. Plains is still a vibrant town, with committed citizens and productive farms. Archery, however, is more of a ghost town.

Carter traces the history of enslavement and segregation in Georgia. Enslavement was legalized in 1751 to enable plantation farming. After the Civil War ended enslavement, the races were separated by social custom, misplaced religious beliefs, and the laws that enforced segregation. Schools, churches, and public buildings were segregated under the Supreme Court’s “separate but equal” doctrine, and Black citizens could not vote or serve on a jury.

The Carters moved to the house in Archery when he was four. Their early conditions were primitive, with well water and an outdoor privy. Meals were made up of vegetables and animals that the family grew and raised. Besides his main cotton and peanut crops, Carter’s father also had a store for his tenant farmers, a blacksmith shop, and a barn with sheep, goats, cattle, mules, horses, cows, and hogs. The farm was supervised by a Black man named Jack Clark, who along with his wife, Rachel, was a strong influence on Carter.

Carter’s earliest friends were sons of his father’s Black sharecroppers, or tenant farmers. His father, Earl, was fair to his workers, unlike some landowners, but they lived in substandard conditions nonetheless. Their nutrition was especially poor, and Carter’s mother, Lillian, a nurse, helped them to grow vegetables.

In 1938, the Rural Electrification Administration brought electricity to some of the local farms, including the Carters’. Carter could see that mechanization was slowly coming to South Georgia, yet his father didn’t buy his first tractor until a year after Carter left for college. Looking back at the tenant system and the slow progress, Carter understands why his parents didn’t try to keep him on the farm but instead encouraged his naval career.

Carter’s best friend was A.D., a Black child who lived on the farm with his aunt and uncle. They enjoyed wrestling, running contests, and hunting and fishing together when Carter wasn’t doing his farm chores. He and A.D. understood that when they traveled to nearby Americus to the movies, they would part and sit in segregated seats on the train and in the theater. He was also close to Rachel Clark, who taught him how to fish and to identify the local flora and fauna.

Carter’s mother worked as a nurse either in the operating room of the local hospital, Wise Sanitarium, or on private duty with patients. She had four children: Jimmy, born in 1924; Gloria (1926), Ruth (1929), and Billy (1937). His father was serious when doing business and lively with friends. He was an excellent sportsman and deeply involved in the community.

Carter traces his ancestry beginning with James Carter, who began acquiring land for cultivation in 1764. He describes successive generations of both the Carters and his mother’s family, the Gordys. He believes he inherited characteristics from all his kinfolk. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were both descended from great-great-grandfathers born in Plains in the 1700s. In the early 20th century, the town had no running water, telephones, or electricity. The town was law-abiding, with no alcohol sales. Carter’s Uncle Alton, called Buddy, was the mayor for 28 years.

Encouraged to work from early childhood, Carter sold boiled peanuts on the streets of Plains at age five. At eight, he bought five bales of cotton and stored it for several years until its value had risen. He then bought five of his father’s tenant houses and rented them out. In high school, he went into business with a cousin selling hamburgers and homemade ice cream cones. Carter reflects that although Plains was a small town, a boy could learn as much about life there as he could in a major city. However, unlike on the farms, Black and white citizens rarely interacted in Plains.

Carter worked small jobs on the farm at first, such as hoeing and chopping wood, and graduated to plowing for crops. He also had the care of his father’s mules and horses. He describes pork processing and harvesting watermelons, sugarcane, corn, and lesser crops such as okra and wheat. The price of cotton was the single most important economic factor. Carter helped protect the plants from insects and picked cotton.

The Carters’ second farm in Webster County was cultivated by day laborers and Black tenant families. The most successful tenant was Willis Wright, and Carter’s father surprised the family by selling the Webster farm to Willis.

Carter spoke “two languages” as a farm boy: That of his African American playmates, and the “white folks’ language” (207) of his school and home. Plains High School housed 11 grades, and attendance to age 16 was required. Carter rode into town with friends or took a bus, while his Black friends walked to class in a church building. Although he was small for his age until he reached college, Carter was fast and made the varsity basketball team. He dated a series of girls but never told a girl he loved her until he fell in love with Rosalynn.

At age 14, Carter noticed his Black friends began treating him with deference. He suspects that their parents told them to do this as they all settled into “adult roles in an unquestioned segregated society” (229), but the relationships were never the same afterwards. He began mingling more with his white school friends.

To get an appointment at the Naval Academy, Carter needed the help of either one of Georgia’s senators or the local congressman, Steven Pace. Pace kept him waiting for two years, during which Carter attended junior college and then Georgia Tech, before he secured the appointment. Carter went on to serve in the Navy for seven years. His father’s death made him rethink his career, and he returned to Plains and bought back the land his father had sold to Willis Wright.

He describes each of his siblings, including motorcycle-riding Gloria, evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, and his flamboyant, much-younger brother Billy, who liked to provide quotes during Carter’s presidential campaign.

Carter reflects on how little Plains has changed except in the area of attitudes toward race. He says he focused on the distant past in his memoir to better understand himself and, perhaps, to bring some perspective to the present as a new millennium dawns.