A look back at Jimmy Carter’s visits to Massachusetts – The Boston Globe

One day before the New Hampshire primaries, Carter, along with all but one of the other Democratic presidential candidates vying for their party’s presidential nomination including Mo Udall, Birch Bayh, and Fred Harris, appeared at John Hancock Hall for the first in a series of five “Presidential Forums” organized by the League of Women Voters. The Forum centered on “High employment, low inflation and cheap energy,” and was televised on WGBH-TV, according to a 1976 Globe article.

On the campaign trail before he was elected president, Carter made a brief appearance at a fundraiser for local candidates including then-Congressional candidate Edward J. Markey at the Ramada Inn in East Boston, according to public schedule records. Carter then travelled to Chestnut Hill to speak 5,000 students at Boston College’s Roberts Center with Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

He returned to the Ramada Inn, where he met with hundreds of Jewish leaders at the Conference of Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations, according to a 1976 Globe article.

Carter’s first visit to Massachusetts as president came just two months after he was inaugurated at a period of high unemployment and inflation around the country.

After arriving at a hotel in Boxoboro, Carter dined with Democratic Massachusetts officials including Governor Michael Dukakis, Senator Ed Kennedy, and several other elected representatives.

As a part of his “people-to-people” campaign to connect with Americans, Carter visited the small town of Clinton to host a town hall meeting and answer questions from the public.

He then spent the night at the home of Clinton residents Edward and Kay Thompson, along with their eight children. Clinton residents lined the block on Chestnut Street where the Thompsons lived to catch a glimpse of the president.

“We’re an average family and we’ll do no more for the president than we would for any other guest,” Kay Thompson told the Globe at the time.

After having breakfast with the Thompsons March 17 — and writing a note to excuse 14-year-old Jane Thompson’s tardiness to school — Carter took the presidential motorcade to Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, departing Massachusetts on Air Force One, according to records of his public schedule.

Just over a week before the 1978 midterm elections, Carter briefly visited the northeast amidst a packed campaign schedule to stump for Massachusetts Democratic candidates.

On the steps of the Lynn City Hall, Carter spoke to a crowd of about 25,000, praising Senate candidate Paul Tsongas and gubernatorial candidate Edward King.High school bands from several North Shore communities, including Lynn and Salem, performed.

“It is an honor for me to come back to Massachusetts,” Carter said to the crowd, according to a 1978 Globe article. “You treated me well in 1976.”

His motorcade, often pausing so the president could wave to onlookers lining the route, then proceeded to neighboring Lynnfield, about eight miles northwest, where he addressed guests at a fundraising reception for then-Representative Tsongas and King at the Colonial Inn before jetting off on Air Force One to Portland, Maine. Both Tsongas and King won their races that year.

The entirety of the Massachusetts trip spanned about three hours, according to his public schedule from that day.

Carter flew into Boston via Logan Airport on an unusually warm October morning to deliver dedication remarks at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester. In his speech, Carter grieved Kennedy’s death and spoke of carrying forward the former president’s vision for America.

“This library will be more than just a collection of photographs and objects under glass,” Carter said in his dedication remarks to a crowd of about 7,000 guests at the ceremony. “It will be a living memorial at many levels. Here in Boston, it will take up the causes of the community, helping to revitalize this section of our city. Across the country, it will reach out to visitors and scholars, summoning young men and women to careers in public life.”

After the dedication ceremony, Senator Ted Kennedy escorted Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, on a tour of the library.

After returning to Logan, Carter taped interviews with multiple Boston media outlets including the Christian Science Monitor, WBZ-TV, WCVB-TV, WBGBH-TV, and WNAC-TV, before returning to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

The president’s trip to Boston lasted about four and a half hours, according to Carter’s daily schedule.

Air Force One landed at Logan Airport around 10:30 a.m. for a whirlwind day of presidential campaigning just weeks before the 1980 general election, in which Carter would lose the presidency to Ronald Reagan.

His first stop was the Christopher Columbus Community Center in the North End, where he met with about 300 senior citizens from Boston.

The rest of the afternoon comprised campaign rallies and fundraisers. Outside the community center, the president spoke at a campaign rally, then travelled to Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant in South Boston for a $500-a-plate Massachusetts Democratic National Committee Fundraising Luncheon before returning to Logan Airport and departing Beantown for the last time as president.

Sonel Cutler can be reached at sonel.cutler@globe.com. Follow her @cutler_sonel. Kathy McCabe can be reached at Katherine.McCabe@globe.com. Follow her @GlobeKMcCabe.