Just like country music, Jimmy Carter may have been born in the South, but he was guaranteed to go nationwide, Rosalynn Carter said in September 1976 while visiting the now-defunct Opryland USA theme park in Nashville as part of her husband’s presidential campaign.
Her prediction, of course, came true.
In a whirlwind of hand-shaking, autographing and political sloganeering, the first-lady-to-be visited Music City for four hours on Sept. 6, 1976, to help cultivate her husband’s public image as a small-town Southern gentleman.
“I hope ya’ll will vote for Jimmy for president,” she told the locals who came out to meet her, according to a Tennessean article published the day after. She promised that her husband, who served as governor of Georgia from
1971 through 1975, would “make Southern hospitality a national tradition.”
Her afternoon-long tour began with a news conference, where she assured reporters that she had a "basically good relationship” with all her adult children when asked about their recently revealed marijuana use.
Carter then toured Opryland USA, an American-music-themed amusement park that operated from 1972 through 1997, where the crowd gave her a standing ovation after she told them that America is the “greatest country on earth despite all of its faults.”
Finally, she made a brief TV appearance on Channel 5 before flying to her next stop in Saginaw, Michigan.
Jimmy Carter would go on to win the 1976 presidential election, narrowly defeating incumbent Gerald Ford to become the 39th president of the United States.
As president, he pardoned Vietnam draft evaders and oversaw a number of international issues, such as ending U.S. control of the Panama Canal and dealing with the fallout of the Iranian Revolution.
Rosalyn Carter played an active role as first lady, sitting in on Cabinet meetings and representing her husband in meetings with foreign and domestic leaders.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were both born in Plains, Georgia, and married in 1946.
At 100 years old when he died in December 2024, Carter was the longest-living former U.S. president.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Country music and Jimmy Carter: Rosalynn's 1976 visit to Nashville
