Jimmy Carter of racial segregation and support the growing civil rights movement. He became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967, Carter served in the Georgia State Senate, and in 1970, he was elected as Governor of Georgia, defeating former Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary on an anti-segregation platform advocating affirmative action for ethnic minorities. Carter remained as governor until 1975. Despite being a dark horse candidate little-known outside of Georgia at the start of the campaign, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. In the general election, Carter ran as an outsider and narrowly defeated incumbent
USS Jimmy Carter and the only submarine to be named for a living former president. The contract to build "Jimmy Carter" was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut, on 29 June 1996, and her keel was laid on 5 December 1998. Original schedules called for "Jimmy Carter" to be commissioned in late 2001 or early 2002, but on 10 December 1999, Electric Boat was awarded a US $887 million extension to the "Jimmy Carter" contract to modify the boat for testing of new submarine systems and highly classified missions previously carried out by . During modification,