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Jimmy Carter’s work fostering world peace during and after his presidency is well-documented, but a local nonprofit is shining greater light on work deepening ties with Japan, starting while he served as governor of Georgia in the early 1970s.
The Japan-America Society of Georgia awarded the former president with its first lifetime achievement award at the 41st annual Bonenkai holiday gala in December, honoring Mr. Carter for his role in knitting the state and country together less than 30 years after the end of World War II.
The award was accepted on Mr. Carter’s behalf by Jason Carter, the president’s grandson and the chairman of The Carter Center’s board of trustees.
Mr. Carter served as governor of Georgia from 1971-75. Georgia’s first two Japanese investors, YKK and Murata Electronics, established operations in Georgia in 1972 and ’73, respectively, kickstarting a relationship that now underpins 35,000 jobs at more than 650 Japanese-affiliated firms companies across the state.
Much of the historical success in wooing Japanese firms has to do with Georgia’s consistent presence in Japan via a trade and tourism outpost launched by Mr. Carter in 1973, the state’s first foreign office anywhere in the world. (The model set a precedent: the state now has 12 such offices globally.)
That development was followed by the opening of a Japanese consulate in Atlanta in 1974, helping solidify the city’s ties with the country and opening the door to a broad array of cultural and business exchanges, from the gift of Yoshino cherry trees that helped grow the Macon Cherry Blossom Festival, to the many sister-city relationships and grassroots exchanges that sprouted in the years following. Mr. Carter’s successor as Georgia governor, George Busbee, built on his legacy in launching the SEUS-Japan alliance in 1976.
Speaking to some 250 guests during the gala at the Piedmont Driving Club, Jason Carter said his grandfather, now 97, in many ways saw the relationships he built with Japan during his tenure as governor to be foundational to his engagement with the world.
Just before his birthday, the former president received a heartfelt gift from Konu, a district of Japan’s Miyoshi city, where a key roadway and the civic center both carry the former president’s name.
“A few months ago, he received from a small group of children in a hospital one thousand cranes, and he hung it right in his sunroom,” Jason Carter said of the gift from the sister city of Americus, Ga., just up the road from the Carter farm in Plains. “So that connection to the rest of the world that he’s had so much for his life, it really is now in that room with that incredible symbol of Japanese culture.”
Not only did he hold major bilateral meetings with then-Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira in Japan while in office, but Mr. Carter left a legacy of grassroots exchange during trips there after his term ended, winning hearts and across Japan through displays of hallmark humility and folksiness.
“President Carter has the particular superpower of making everyone who comes in contact with him, from emperors and prime ministers to businesspeople and school children, feel seen, valued and important to him,” said Jessica Cork, a vice president at YKK and the chair of the Japan-America Society of Georgia, during the gala.
Having struck up a friendship with YKK founder and Chairman Tadao Yoshida through the company’s investment process in Georgia, Mr. Carter in 1984 visited the company’s hometown of Kurobe for the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.
While there, Mr. Carter surprised an assembled audience (and likely dismayed his Secret Service detail) by taking off at the gunshot with runners starting an annual marathon. The act left such an impression that the race to this day is known as the Jimmy Carter Marathon. On that same same trip, Mr. Carter made a more somber stop at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first-ever atomic bomb used in war.
Not too far from there, within the Hiroshima prefecture, sits Konu district, the original home of a bell that was donated to The Carter Center by the Japanese consulate in 1985. First planned to be melted down for ammunition, the bell was spared by World War II’s end and made its way to the U.S. in private hands before ending up at its current home.
The society has launched a $300,000 fundraising effort to build a more fitting means of displaying the bell in the Japanese garden on the Carter Center grounds. It is to modeled after one at Konu’s Shogan-ji temple, where what’s now known as “The Peace Bell” hung before its embarking on its intercontinental journey.
Nearly $41,000 has been raised so far for the tower, which organizers envision as a touchpoint for emphasizing the enduring Japan-Georgia friendship, fittingly installed at an institution honoring the life’s work of the world’s most notable proponents of peace and reconciliation.
Plans call for materials like shingles, wood works, stone and even a wooden bell hammer to be made in Japan and shipped here, while carpenters from Konu will be brought in to ensure proper installation. The projected date of completion is October 2022.
Learn more about the Friendship Tower Project and donate here.
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