Rosalynn Carter: Advocate for Jimmy Carter and many others, always leveraging her love of politics
The Washington chattering class, often unsure what to make of outsiders, dubbed Rosalynn Carter the “Steel Magnolia” when she arrived as first lady.
A devout Baptist and mother of four, she was diminutive and outwardly shy, with a soft smile and softer Southern accent. That was the “magnolia.” She also was a force behind Jimmy Carter’s rise from peanut farmer to winner of the 1976 presidential election. That was the “steel.”
Yet that obvious, even trite moniker almost certainly undersold her role and impact across the Carters’ early life, their one White House term and their four decades afterward as global humanitarians advocating peace, democracy and the eradication of disease.
Through more than 77 years of marriage, until her death Sunday at the age of 96, Rosalynn Carter was business and political partner, best friend and closest confidant to the 39th president. A Georgia Democrat like her husband, she became in her own right a leading advocate for people with mental health conditions and family caregivers in American life, and she joined the former president as co-founder of The Carter Center, where they set a new standard for what first couples can accomplish after yielding power.
“She was always eager
