Jimmy Carter’s many NC visits, from dining in Chapel Hill to building houses in Charlotte
There was no keeping it a secret when former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, arranged to have dinner in Chapel Hill, former Crook’s Corner chef Bill Smith said.
In his book, “Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home,” Smith writes that Secret Service agents visited the restaurant in 1997, a week before Carter was scheduled to be in town to visit his granddaughter at Duke University.
The restaurant was packed that night, Smith recalled, and the host seated the Carters at a table in the back. After dinner, Carter visited the kitchen, intent on meeting the staff who made his dinner — a group of mostly Mexican immigrants.
After inquiring about their lives in the United States, he returned to his table, asking for a glass of buttermilk, Smith recalled. He always had some on hand “for cornbread and fried chicken batter,” he said.
“When (Carter and his wife) got up to leave, the whole restaurant, as if on cue, was suddenly on its feet applauding. It was remarkable,” Smith noted.
The Carters posed for pictures with the restaurant’s staff on the way out, returning several years later during a visit to Chapel Hill for their grandson’s rehearsal dinner. Carter brought with him an inscribed copy of his memoir, “An Hour Before Daylight,” Smith said.
“I couldn’t believe that he had remembered me,” Smith said in his own book. “I had remembered that Mrs. Carter liked liver, so I had made her a little chicken liver terrine. They seemed equally amazed at my memory.”
Carter died Sunday at age 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Carter’s roots in NC
The Carter family roots run deep in North Carolina, beginning with Carter’s sixth-great-grandparents Moore and Jane Carter, who settled in northeastern North Carolina in the early 1700s, according to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. The area today includes Bertie, Edgecombe and Hertford counties.
A couple of generations later, Carter’s branch of the family tree broke off to Georgia, where his fourth-great-grandfather Kindred Carter and his brother James settled to raise their families.
But Carter visited North Carolina many times — for fun, for family, and to campaign for fellow Democrats during and after his time in the White House.
They made several stops in the 1970s, beginning with their tour of the country as Carter campaigned against then-Republican President Gerald Ford.
In June 1976, Carter made a star appearance at a campaign fundraiser in Asheville hosted by former U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan and William A.V. Cecil, the grandson of George Washington Vanderbilt III and former owner of the Biltmore Estate.
Later that year, he spoke at a Democratic rally in Winston-Salem alongside former state Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham and former Gov. Jim Hunt.
Roughly 56% of N.C. voters chose Carter for president just two weeks later, making the state one of six across the South that handed Carter a decisive win that year, and giving him a big boost in his narrow defeat of Ford.
The legendary Chapel Hill party band Liquid Pleasure played his inaugural ball that year — making Carter the first of many presidents to invite them to perform.
In December 1977, Carter and his wife returned to North Carolina, landing in Fayetteville, where they were greeted by his sister, Ruth Stapleton, and brother, Billy Carter, along with other dignitaries, at what was then Pope Air Force Base. After a rehearsal dinner that night for their nephew, who was getting married, the Carters spent the night at the home of Stapleton and her husband, Bob.
In 1978, Carter returned to Asheville, addressing a crowd of dignitaries and residents outside Air Force One before attending a 300-person campaign event for Democratic candidate John Ingram, who subsequently lost his campaign that year against incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.
Carter also campaigned that year for Ingram in Wilson, where he spoke to a crowd gathered outside the Wilson County Public Library before making additional stops at the Heart of Wilson Motor Inn for a Democratic Party luncheon and at the Grower’s Cooperative Warehouse.
At the warehouse, Carter spoke with local farming families before touring the tobacco sales area and watching a tobacco auction.
Habitat for Humanity houses built in NC
Years later, in 1991, Carter spoke at the Emerging Issues Forum at N.C. State University in Raleigh, and in 2014, he appeared at a book signing hosted by Quail Ridge Books. Press photographers also were on hand for book signings in 2008 at a Sam’s Club in Durham and in 2009 at the Galleria Walmart Supercenter in Charlotte.
Carter returned the following year to Durham, where he signed copies of his new book, “White House Diary,” at The Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street.
In October 2023, the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project returned to Charlotte, where over 1,000 volunteers built 27 family homes. It’s a small number compared with the 4,417 homes that Habitat for Humanity reports the program built in 14 countries over 40 years.
The Carters became Habitat volunteers in 1981, after leaving the White House, and remained active until 2019. The 2023 project was the first since COVID-19 hit pause on the nonprofit’s construction plans.
The Carters weren’t able to attend. Rosalynn Carter died a little over a month later in November 2023 at the age of 96.
But in 1987, they were in Charlotte, hammering and sawing wood alongside 300 volunteers to build 14 homes and help kickstart Habitat for Humanity’s mission, according to Charlotte native and project leader Bob Wilson.
“It is not an accident that we chose to come to Charlotte,” Carter said at the time. “There are 205 communities in the country with Habitat projects. We could have gone to any of them, but Charlotte, for us, is special.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2024 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Jimmy Carter’s many NC visits, from dining in Chapel Hill to building houses in Charlotte."
