Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age
by Jimmy Carter, 1992

Few individuals in our world today can match the achievements and moral stature of former President Jimmy Carter. Not only did he attain America's highest office, but since leaving the White House he has worked to bring peace and hope to the least fortunate of our world. It has been said, without exaggeration, that Jimmy Carter is the only man ever to have used the presidency as a stepping-stone to greater service.

Turning Point is President Carter's story of how he first sought public office in 1962 and how the social and political conflicts in the South during that era shaped his vision of how people of good faith can join forces to right the wrongs of our society. By 1962, segregation laws had been declared invalid, and confrontations were taking place at lunch counters, universities, and bus depots. That spring, the Supreme Court's "one man, one vote" decision mandated equal representation for all citizens, but when Carter decided to run for the newly reconstituted Georgia state senate, his career was nearly strangled at birth. A political boss of the district, who supported Carter's opponent, was not about to let civil rights or Supreme Court decisions stand in the way of his thirst for power.

In recreating his own experiences amid the volatile atmosphere of that time, Carter paints a vivid portrait of America poised on the verge of political and social change that nearly tore it apart – an image that applies just as aptly to our nation today.

We continue to wrestle with the same issues of fairness and equal opportunity that were the themes of Carter's first political campaign thirty years ago, and it is this persistence of inequity that has led President Carter to embark on another campaign – this one to find solutions to the problems of endemic poverty in cities. The Atlanta Project, spearheaded by The Carter Center, flows directly from our former chief executive's personal experiences and from his unshakable sense of right and wrong.

Turning Point illuminates the origins of President Carter's commitment to human rights and how he has labored to bring about real-life advancements for human decency. No one can read this book and not be touched by this remarkable man.

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