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In the summer of 1966, James Earl Carter, Jr. was a 41-year-old Georgia peanut farmer planning his first race for Governor of Georgia. That summer, 12-year-old Monroe Lee, of Madison – who shares an Oct. 1 birthday with Carter – was working in the peanut fields of Hamilton County, Fla., less than two hours from Carter's hometown of Plains, Ga.
A few days after a disputed Florida election in which Lee had run as a write-in candidate before dropping out to throw his support to Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum, Carter, former United States President, and Lee, ex-employee of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Carter's presidential administration, shared a few words about science and religion, politics and life, on Sunday, Nov. 11.
Their talk came after a Sunday School lesson at Plains' Maranatha Baptist Church, where the day's Bible lesson had been about Ruth, one of five women in the Genealogy of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew, also the namesake of Carter's late sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, like Lee, a preacher of the Holy Word.
Though Lee prefers to keep most of his conversation with Carter private, he regards as providential the Sunday, Nov. 11, meeting with the former president. Carter, in his 1966 campaign for Governor of Georgia was, like Lee in his 2018 campaign for Governor of Florida, a candidate for Christian values and racial justice. Lately, Lee has been preaching in Gainesville, Fla. and seeking justice in the courts there.
It was Lee's long friendship with Andrew Gillum's Gainesville-based father, in fact, that had prompted Lee in September to travel from Gainesville, where Gillum grew up, to Tallahassee, to withdraw from the governor's race and throw his support behind the Democratic nominee. Gillum's mother, a native of Madison, now lives in Gainesville as well. Lee officially announced his withdrawal from the race and his support for Andrew Gillum at the September meeting of the Alachua County Democratic Executive Committee, in Gainesville.
"President Carter and I have so much in common," said Lee, including their joint support of Gillum, and their common hope that after a recount Andrew Gillum would be Governor of Florida. The recount ended up not delivering that result, but Lee and Carter believe providence may have greater things in store for Gillum. Carter, at the same age as Gillum is today, also lost his first gubernatorial election. But he went on to win election as Governor of Georgia four years later, and then to be elected President of the United States.