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An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood

jimmy carter

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In An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter, bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength, recreates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm before the civil rights movement forever changed it and the country.

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.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2000

This edition

Format
288 pages, Paperback
Published
October 16, 2001 by Simon \u0026 Schuster
ISBN
9780743211994
ASIN
0743211995
Language
English

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About the author

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jimmy carter

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Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

James Earl Carter, Junior, known as Jimmy, the thirty-ninth president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, creditably established energy-conservation measures, concluded the treaties of Panama Canal in 1978, negotiated the accords of Camp David between Egypt and Israel in 1979, and won the Nobel Prize of 2002 for peace.

Ronald Wilson Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, in the presidential election of 1980.

He served and received. Carter served two terms in the senate of Georgia and as the 76th governor from 1971 to 1975.

Carter created new Cabinet-level Department of education. A national policy included price decontrol and new technology. From 1977, people reduced foreign oil imports one-half to 1982. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the second round of strategic arms limitation talks (SALT). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights in 1979. People saw his return of the zone as a major concession of influence in Latin America, and Carter came under heavy criticism.

Iranian students in 1979 took over the American embassy and held hostages, and an attempt to rescue them failed; several additional major crises, including serious fuel shortages and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, marked the final year of his tenure. Edward Moore Kennedy challenged significantly higher disapproval ratings of Carter for nomination of the Democratic Party before the election of 1980. Carter defeated Kennedy for the nomination lost the election to Ronald Wilson Reagan, a Republican.

Carter left office and with Rosalynn Smith Carter, his wife, afterward founded the nongovernmental center and organization that works to advance human rights. He traveled extensively to conduct, to observe elections, and to advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. He, a key, also figured in the project of habitat for humanity. Carter particularly vocalized on the Palestinian conflict.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/jimmyc...

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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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HyperbolaDegen
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I loved every minute of this book.
My Dad grew up on a farm, about 12 years later than Mr. Carter, and 2000 miles north and west of him. I've always loved hearing my Dad's stories of life on the Iowa farm, and I loved Mr. Carter's book about his family's Georgia farm.
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kumorinohi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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An incredible look at a Democratic Baptist upbringing begin in the pre-electric, pre-Civil Rights American South. Deeply affectionate, surprisingly candid.
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TunyVuny
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This book was recommended to me by my husband's grandmother. I can definitely see why she liked it as she grew up on a farm. This book is a nice look at farmlife during the depression. It's a world of difficulties, challenges, fun memories, imaginitive minds and especially .... NO TV! I like how it seems more like I'm listening to someone talk about their memories instead of reading a story from beginning to end.
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Ryou00
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I first started reading this book around six years ago, but it never grabbed me. So I did something I hardly ever do and put it aside. After Jimmy Carter’s recent death, I decided to try again. The book still didn’t grab me, but I muddled through it. In a typical autobiography, the author would likely spend a few chapters on their youth. And there were enough interesting stories in this book to fill three or four chapters. Not enough for an entire book, though. It’s impressive that President Carter remembered so many details from his childhood, but he didn’t have to share every single name of anyone he met. There were some fascinating bits about life in the South in Depression-era America (sharecropping, the introduction of electricity and cars, racial interactions) and I’m glad I read the book. But I had to slog through a lot of snooze-worthy minutia to take it in.
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RascalKun
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This well written memoir is essentially a slice of Jimmy Carter's life until he leaves for Annapolis in his Sophmore year of college. He shows you what his day-to-day life was like on his farm in Archery (a town which no longer exists) and at home and in school in Plains, and also gives you the background for his ancestors and his knowledge of and memories of his grandparents and parents.

What I found most fascinating was Jimmy Carter's view into every day life on his farm in the South during the depression. How they worked, what the economics was for him and the sharecroppers and day laborers on the farm and for his friends (all black), and what the social and political situations were.

Of course, Jimmy Carter could only report what he remembered and certainly his view would have been tempered by what was normal to him as opposed to how those same events would have been shared by his black neighbors, but he clearly tries to give us as much of their view as possible and also tries to see his childhood and the childhoods of his friends through adult eyes so that we can see how their lives differed from his. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir of Georgia in the 30s and 40s. Recommended.
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catalox
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Fascinated by this former president, I stumbled upon this book of his “early days.” His vision of the world at this time compels me to research further how it shaped his political career and find more works dedicated to those efforts. Solid read authored by the character himself.
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royalripper
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Here it is, early Nov in a tense election year, and this book came recommended to me by a podcast episode about political memoirs. I deeply admire this good man -- who is still with us at 100 years old -- and wanted to spend some time "with him" while he's alive, and while this is a story of early boyhood of a living great, rather than something like a historical document.

Well, it is an odd book. It's an interesting history of growing up in a very specific time and place, and OH BY THE WAY you may not ever realize it, but this farmboy became a president. You will read 241 pages to learn that his Uncle Buddy was county commissioner and a mayor who eventually earned $2/month around 1954...and that is almost as close as you'll get to hearing about a political life. This is strictly his love for Plains and his time as a boy in a time I can really only conceive of as "history."

In these last days of his life, this life story can still feel alive and connected to our 2024 reality. I don't know what will happen with the US election in a few days, but I'm hoping that his history and levelheaded kindness will be honored in our country.
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wxsb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Learned a lot about Carter and his childhood. He gives credit where credit is due. Very interesting.
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