Politics
When Carter Went to the Bronx
The image of Jimmy Carter standing on a desolate block in a poor New York City neighborhood in 1977 became an enduring memory of his presidency.
Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today, on a national day of mourning for former President Jimmy Carter, we’ll look at Carter’s relationship to New York. We’ll also get details on the decision by the city’s Board of Elections not to fire its executive director after investigators found that he had harassed two female employees.
Credit…Harvey Georges/Associated Press
President Jimmy Carter flew to New York in October 1977 to tell the United Nations General Assembly that he was “willing” to shrink the United States’ nuclear arsenal if the Soviet Union matched the reductions. The next day, he did something unannounced, unexpected and unrelated to foreign policy.
He went to the South Bronx.
It was a symbolic side trip to show that he was willing to face urban problems. Leaders like Vernon Jordan of the National Urban League had already begun to talk about dashed expectations: “We expected Carter to be working as hard to meet the needs of the poor as he did to get our votes,” Jordan had said a couple of months earlier. “But so far, we have been disappointed.”
Carter, a Democrat, wasn’t satisfied with driving through neighborhoods dominated by desolation and despair. “Let me walk about a block,” he told the Secret Service agents accompanying him, and he got out of the limousine.
That morning in the South Bronx became an enduring memory of his presidency. But there are other New York memories to remember today, a national day of mourning for Carter, who died on Dec. 29.
