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
Jimmy Carter and a distant cousin to the Carter family of musicians. Carter and Rosalynn Smith were married in July 1946. They have three sons, one daughter, eight grandsons, three granddaughters, and two great-grandsons. Mary Prince (an African American woman wrongly convicted of murder, and later pardoned) was their daughter Amy's nanny for most of the period from 1971 until Jimmy Carter's presidency ended. Carter had asked to be designated as her parole officer, thus helping to enable her to work in the White House. The Carters celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in July 2016, making them the second-longest wed presidential couple