Summary Of An Hour Before Daylight By Jimmy Carter

An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood by Jimmy Carter

Carter, Jimmy. An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood. New York:

Simon & Schuster, 2001. Print.

288 pages

An Hour Before Daylight is an autobiography written by our thirty-ninth president of the United States, Jimmy Carter. He tells the story of his life from his childhood growing up in Avery, Georgia during the depression. His father was a farmer who had many sharecroppers living on his property working his farm. Jack Clark, who was one of the sharecroppers, would go to the main barn each morning around 4 o’clock am and would ring the bell for all sharecroppers to wake up and start the day hence the title An Hour Before Daylight.

Jimmy Carter

grew up in the 1930’s-1940’s during the depression and at a time where racial divide was very common especially in the South. The book creates a vivid picture of how that time looked for those in Archery, Georgia. Many people had lost their jobs and were moving across the country in search of work. He described how as many as 200-300 people would pass their farm looking for work. The Carters had about 12 different families living on the farm and working their cotton and peanut fields. A day’s pay was a dollar for men, fifty cents for women, and 25 cents for a teenage boy.They would work from sun up to sunset with a break each day at noon for lunch. The average income of a man at this time was 275 dollars a year.
Jimmy Carter had a two sisters and one brother His dad was very prominent in the community and was thought to be wealthy.

Jimmy Carter says looking back they were very poor by today’s standards. His dad owned a store on the main street in plains, owned his farm, did some teaching and was very involved in the community. His mom was a nurse and would often help people who were sick and needed medical attention. She delivered many babies and helped everyone regardless of their color which in that time was very unusual. His father always referred to himself as fair but Jimmy Carter thought he still kept racial divide a part of his

life.
Many of the people who made an impact on his life as a child lived very close to him if not right on his property. He often talked about Jack Clark who was a sharecropper and lived on his property. Jimmy Carter was very close to Jack Clark and his wife Rachel. Rachel never had any children and Jimmy Carter always felt he meant a lot to them. Even though he would spend much time with them he always felt that racial divide. He recalls that they never touched him other than maybe to lift him over a fence. He often wanted Jack to carry him on his shoulders but Jack would not do that. Jimmy also loved Jack’s wife Rachel. He said she was very kind and spent many hours talking to him. He recalls learning a lot about fishing and hunting from Jack and Rachel. Jack was his dad’s number one man and Jimmy Carter always felt he treated him a little better.
The Carters attended Plains Baptist Church but would occasionally attend St. Mark AME where Bishop William Decker Johnson was the pastor. Bishop Johnson was a very successful black man with high social status. He had churches in 5 midwestern states but his home was in Avery. Jimmy Carter remembers Bishop Johnson coming to their home to discuss social events, town events and current news with his father but what stands out in his mind was once again the racial divide that was always there. The Bishop would never come to the door of the house and knock as this was not acceptable for black people to come to a white man’s home. He would pull up into the yard in his Cadillac and honk the horn. He would wait in his car for Mr. Carter to come out of the house. Jimmy Carter would always watch as they talked and laughed with each other but didn’t understand why he would not come to the house.
He most likely didn’t understand because most of his friends were black and they spent hours together having fun. However, when it was time to go to school, Jimmy Carter would go to one school while his friend attended the “black school” He recalls when the government finally decided to provide bus service to school children the yellow bus that picked up black students had a black bumper. He talks about going to the movies but the black kids had to sit on a different balcony and could not watch the movie with the white kids. Jimmy Carter understood what the racial divide was about as he had listened to his parents and grandparents discuss it over many Sunday dinners however, what they talked about did not make sense in the world he lived in.
Jimmy Carter had great respect for a sharecropper who lived on the Carters largest farm.

His name was Willis Wright. He was very active in leading a strike against landowners for a raise of 25 cents. Many of the shareholders got together at a church and organized a walk out. When none of the Carter’s workers showed up for work Mr. Carter went to each and every house telling them that they would report to work in the morning or they would be asked to pack all of their belongings and leave. Willis Wright came to Mr. Carter and convinced him that all of his workers were loyal to him but could no longer continue to work without more money. Mr. Carter agreed to give them one dollar and twenty-five cents a day but only because all other landowners had done the same but not because he felt pressured by the black man. Jimmy Carter remembered this and admired Willis Wright for his courage. Years later, when blacks were given the right to vote he came to Jimmy Carter telling him in order to register to vote he had to answer this long questionare. Jimmy Carter told him to go back to the office and tell them he had spoken to Jimmy Carter and he needed to register to

vote.