"A Small Act" By Jimmy Carter

Icon Crafter- Mike Cramer


Discussion Director-Steve Wainwright

The purpose of the story is to show an evolution of a cross-racial friendship over a time of segregation. When Jimmy and A.D. were young, nothing mattered to them. They didn’t see each other as opposites, and they both treated one another as if they were brothers. When they came of age though, they were slammed into the segregated society. Jimmy began to become more in-tuned with white society, and A.D. began to remove himself from Jimmy’s world. They began to take their roles-A.D. and his cousins began to look up to Jimmy as if he were superior, just because of skin color. While the change in the relationship was unintentional, it had a massive effect on how they viewed each other. The writer wanted to reader to see how childhood friendships can deteriorate so much in a short amount of time, and for really no reason other than the sociological psyche of the given time period.) I think this because of Jimmy’s usage of words. Jimmy conveyed that message with the way he described the deterioration of the relationship, by citing specific events that led to the loss of friendship. “Around age fourteen, I began to develop closer ties with the white community” Jimmy began. He then went on to speak about how he strived to be part of the basketball team, and became more interested in girls. He later cited a specific event in which the change in the relationship was apparent, saying that “A.D. and Edmund opened the gate and stepped back to let me go through first. I was immediately suspicious they were playing some trick on me, but I passed through without stumbling over a tripwire or having them slam the gate in my face.”(154)

Researcher-Morgan Foster

Jimmy Carter:

•Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981
•Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002
•Born in Georgia on the outskirts of Americus in the Plains
•Raised During the Great Depression
•Strong believer in Racial Segregation (Based off of his fathers influence and the world he grew up in) but was balanced with his mother’s belief that all people were equal and cared for both whites and blacks.
•In 1971 he was on the cover of Times Magazine for his declaration that "the time for racial discrimination is over."
•Appointed more African Americans and women into office than any other President

Creative Connector- John Byron

nThe story takes place in a small southern town named Archery, Georgia. The time period is in the mid 1930’s, prior to the civil right’s movement, but at the height of racial oppression. This kind of friendship between these two boys was extremely rare- Jimmy was an upper class white kid, and A.D. came from a poor black farming family. Just the fact that this kind of relationship existed speaks volumes for the families of the two involved. Race didn’t matter to the parent’s of the two boys, and that was hard to find in those days. While society may have ultimately caught up to the two, the relationship shows that both of them had no preference of race, and therefore, progress in the right direction was being made in a time way before the civil rights movement.