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While we're looking back at Democrats and race in the 1970s, I shall now repost/update a 2016 tweetstorm that I never properly threaded about the 1976 Jimmy Carter campaign...
...In the wake of Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment, I had written about the history of Democratic presidential candidates winking at white racial grievance... politico.com/magazine/story…
...I included this controversy during the 1976, when Carter defended whites "who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods" and opposed forced integration by the federal government 
...but really interesting and long-forgotten was a major controversy two days before the general election when four African-Americans tried to attend the church Jimmy Carter worships at in Plains, GA...
...When the African-Americans arrive, the church deacons cancel services and lock the doors.
The minister, who opposes the deacons, tells reporters the church has an official rule barring “n***ers & civil rights agitators”...
The minister, who opposes the deacons, tells reporters the church has an official rule barring “n***ers & civil rights agitators”...
...The church clerk, Jimmy Carter’s cousin, corrects him. The rule specifies “Negroes or other civil rights agitators.” (UPI coverage here: news.google.com/newspapers?nid… ) ...
...Carter’s spokesman Jody Powell later recalled that after the church incident, he thought for the first time that Carter might lose...
...Carter holds a press conference the next morning, the day before the election (NYT coverage nytimes.com/1976/11/02/arc… ) ...
...Carter says he opposes the church rule & will work to change it, but...
...Carter also says, “I can’t resign from the human race because there’s discrimination. I can’t resign as an American citizen because there’s still discrimination. And I don’t intend to resign from my own church because there’s discrimination"...
...and Carter says, "Now if it was a country club, I would quit … But this is not my church. It’s God’s church."...
...32 years later, during a different Democratic primary controversy, Barack Obama says, “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother”...
...you have to wonder if Obama was aware of how Carter handled this issue before he crafted his More Perfect Union speech...
...After Carter's presser, Coretta Scott King, who attended to give her support, is interviewed by the press. She goes off-message: “Given the kind of creative moral leadership [Carter] has been giving ... [he] should resign … if they do not accept black members”...
...It doesn’t matter. The next day, Carter splits the white vote, wins 83% of the black vote, retakes the South and wins the presidency...
...Some details above come from “Running for President, 1976: The Carter Campaign” by Martin Schram amazon.com/Running-Presid…
