Amy Carter: A private life shaped by her father's public legacy

Amy Carter was just 9 years old when her father, Jimmy Carter, became the 39th President of the United States in 1977. With her golden locks and shy demeanor, the youngest Carter quickly captured the public's attention as the first child to live in the White House since the Kennedy children.

The 57-year-old Carter has been living a mostly private life but has been thrust back into the spotlight, first with the death of her mother in 2023 and now with the passing of her father. She again faces the cameras, which once followed her every move while in the White House. During Tuesday's memorial service in the Captol Rotunda, the cameras seemed to continuously pan to Amy Carter, who has sparsely made public appearances in the last two decades.

Born on October 19, 1967, in Plains, Georgia, Amy was the youngest of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s four children. Her arrival was a family decision; the Carters took a vote on whether to have another child. At just three years old, she moved with her family to Atlanta when her father became governor of Georgia. Seven years later, she entered the White House.

As first daughter, Amy became a symbol of youthful innocence. She roller-skated through the East Room, hosted sleepovers in her South Lawn treehouse, and cared for her Siamese cat, Misty Malarky Ying Yang—who was the last cat to reside in the White House until the Clintons brought their own.

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Despite her playful image, Amy occasionally made headlines for her precocious engagement with serious issues. During her father’s 1980 presidential debate with Ronald Reagan, President Carter mentioned that Amy’s greatest concern was nuclear arms control. Her intellectual curiosity was also on display during state dinners. At a 1977 event for Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, she was seen reading "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" and "The Story of the Gettysburg Address" during the formal toasts.

Amy attended Stevens Elementary School and Rose Hardy Middle School in Washington, D.C., before returning to Atlanta for high school at Woodward Academy. She later pursued higher education, earning a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a master’s degree from Tulane University.

Though she largely retreated from public life, Amy occasionally emerged to champion causes she believed in. During the 1980s and 1990s, she protested U.S. foreign policies on South African apartheid and Central America. In 1986, she was one of 13 people, including activist Abbie Hoffman, arrested for demonstrating against CIA recruitment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was acquitted in a widely publicized trial.

In 1995, Amy collaborated with her father, illustrating his children’s book "The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer." She also served on the Carter Center's board of counselors, contributing to the family's legacy of humanitarian work.

After spending several years away from her public life living in Atlanta, Amy Carter re-entered the public eye in 2023 following the death of her mother, Rosalynn Carter. During the funeral, she read a love letter her father had written to her mother. Now, she finds herself mourning her father, Jimmy Carter, whose life and legacy are being honored by the nation.

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