Letter to Readers: Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, will be long remembered

I wrote the following letter to readers in February 2023, when former President Jimmy Carter entered hospice care and was expected to die soon. He lived almost two more years, outliving his wife, Rosalynn, and celebrating his 100th birthday before he died on Dec. 29, 2024.

When President Jimmy Carter came to McMinnville in 1988 to talk about peace in the Middle East, he made a point of mentioning a barrier that prolonged the tension between Palestine and Israel — and between others in conflict.

They didn’t recognize each other as being equally deserving of respect, Carter said. Until they did, there would be no empathy, no understanding, no real peace.

That’s true of any parties in conflict, Carter has said in many ways since then. Until people recognize one another’s humanity, they cannot fully end their antipathy and become friends.

He called for everyone to be personally involved in resolving the differences between countries and people.

But in the decades since Carter spoke at Linfield, other tensions have continued to grow, including among people with differing opinions in our own country, who call each other “crazy” and “stupid” and worse.

I’m sure it worries the former president how his fellow citizens lack respect and empathy, and seem to be growing farther and farther from real peace.

Carter, a nuclear scientist, former Georgia governor and peanut farmer, was elected our 39th president in 1976. It wasn’t long afterward that Linfield first invited him to visit the McMinnville campus, according to Charlie Walker, president of the college at the time.

In an April 1988 News-Register story about Carter’s speech, Walker noted that it took 10 years for him to make the complicated arrangements to attend the school’s annual Pollard Religion Symposium.

The 39th president spoke to about 100 Northwest ministers, in addition to students and the McMinnville community. I was fortunate to be there, just to listen to someone I had admired since I was in high school. 

He was the second former president to visit Linfield that year. In February 1988, Gerald Ford, Carter’s predecessor, came to campus to deliver the Edith Green Lecture.

Carter’s reputation as president is mixed; many people considered him ineffectual. But his efforts since then have gained him respect — and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He is especially renowned for his efforts to lift families out of poverty through Habitat for Humanity.

The good things he has done — including agreeing to speak at a small Oregon school back in 1988 — will be long remembered.

Starla Pointer
Education/business reporter
503-687-1263
spointer@newsregister.com