In a near random universe there are still certain combinations, picked out from all the other possible ones… – Walter Becker
About 120 miles due south of Atlanta, in the vast spaces of southwest Georgia, where cotton was once king, a small town formed along the new railway back in the 1880s. Incorporated in 1896, the City of Plains has a total area of 0.8 square miles. Its boundary is the shape of a circle. After an early peak of just over 500, the population declined to around 400 by the end of the 1920s, the decade in which the city’s most famous citizens were born: Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Smith.
The town’s numbers have gone up and down somewhat over the years, but not by much: in 2020 the population stood at 573.
Today, Plains has one fewer citizen after Jimmy Carter’s death at the age of 100, but the impact of that loss has reverberated powerfully around the world, producing an outpouring of tributes from world leaders and artists. This tiny circle of land in rural Georgia has been an extraordinary epicenter.
Carter’s vast achievements, all born and raised in Plains, just like himself and his entire family, almost defy belief when lined up: State Senator, Governor, President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize winner, three-time Grammy winner, author, painter, farmer, conservationist, sportsman and volunteer home builder. His fully equal partnership with Rosalynn Carter, whose own achievements as First Lady and tireless activism arguably set the template for Hillary Clinton years later, was a unique and powerful aspect of every part of his life. When he left office in 1981, the Carters returned to live in the home in Plains they had occupied since 1961.
However, before all that, the Carter family had already become an integral part of a group that had formed just a few miles down the road, in Americus, Georgia, which itself has had a staggeringly global impact given its humble origins: Habitat for Humanity, which was born out of the Koinonia Farm community, founded in 1942 as a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God”. Set up to follow the example of the first Christian communities as described in the Acts of the Apostles, Koinonia members divested themselves of personal wealth and lived in an interracial faith-based community, based on a pacifist and love-oriented reading of the New Testament.
The community was essentially shut down by a prolonged attack from the deeply racist local population in the 1950s, which involved not only a boycott of the farm’s products, but also acts of terrorism such as the dynamiting of Koinonia’s roadside produce stand, shots being fired into the compound, threatening phone calls and letters, and the local Ku Klux Klan driving a 70+ car motorcade to the farm. Nevertheless, the Carter family stood alongside them and risked everything to defy the boycott of Koinonia.
The community rebounded in the 1960s, changing its name from Koinonia Farm to Koinonia Partners, and refocusing itself as a social service organization which initiated several programs in partnership with its neighbors, chief among them Koinonia Partnership Housing. This project organized the construction of affordable houses for neighboring low-income families who had previously been living in shacks or dilapidated residences. Using volunteer labor and monetary donations, Koinonia built 194 homes from 1969 to 1992, which families bought with 20-year, no-interest mortgages. Now Habitat for Humanity, an organization that is nearly synonymous with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, has helped more than 59 million people around the world.
It is remarkable to consider how much impact has come from such a small place. A seemingly random spot – in hostile territory – which produced a crop of humanity even more powerful than the kingly cotton of its past or the railway that first created this settlement of 500 or so souls, two of whom have left a profoundly positive legacy to the world. All from a tiny circle of land with the smallest of boundaries, but the most extraordinary width.
As for the tributes that justifiably keep pouring in, none seems more poignant – or more personal – than the one offered by Koinonia Farm itself:
Jimmy Carter was the same person under the glaring light of politics as he was under the streetlight’s soft glow in Plains. A good and decent man, he lived with integrity no matter the circumstance.
In the 1950s, when others heeded the call to boycott Koinonia—refusing to sell to or buy from us—he did not. Our neighbor sold us fertilizer to keep our farm going, even when it meant his business became the next target of boycott. He did not back down.
When his presidency ended sooner than he hoped, his values held firm. Our paths crossed again. Koinonia Partnership Housing built 192 homes in Sumter County, planting the seeds of what would grow into Habitat for Humanity. President Carter and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter did more than lend their names and voices to the fledgling organization; they rolled up their sleeves and worked on countless Habitat builds themselves.
The stories of Koinonia’s friendship with Jimmy Carter are many. At the heart of them all is a shared commitment to peacemaking, service, faith, equality, and common decency. Koinonia was founded as a demonstration plot for Christian living, but often, we only had to look seven miles down the road to see someone demonstrating it for us.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Jimmy.
L’articolo The Width of a Circle proviene da ytali..
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