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O J A I M AG A Z I N E | SPRING 2025
“Carter and I, we had quite a history together,” recalls Arthur Grace of Ojai. While Jimmy Carter was making history as the 39th U.S. president from 1977 to 1981 and even before, photojournalist Grace was capturing it all on film. Grace was with the president throughout his time in office, from Carter’s first campaign for president to the publication of his presidential memoir. Grace’s career spanned three decades as a photographer for United Press International, The New York Times, TIME magazine, and Newsweek, with his photos published worldwide. Following Carter’s death on Dec. 29 at 100 years old, Grace shared remembrances of his years covering the president. “It’s like the end of an era,” Grace says of Carter’s passing. “Carter brought decency, a commitment to human rights, and a quest for peace to the Oval Office and in his post-presidency. On a personal level, it’s the uncomfortable realization that 50 years have passed since I first began covering him. It was a great ride early in my career, so there’s great memories as well as a wake-up call that I’m way old.”
Grace was with Carter:
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Carter
— On the campaign trail “first in New Hampshire and then in Florida, and then at the convention, the election, the inauguration. Then, when his administration started, I moved to Washington and I covered him for the next four years, among other assignments abroad. I’m not clairvoyant, but in late 1975 when I got back to the TIME bureau in Boston after spending a few days with this peanut farmer from Georgia, the bureau chief asked me what I thought of him. I answered: ‘This guy’s different. He’s saying something that seems to be resonating with the people up there. … His line was, ‘We can be as good, as kind, and as decent as the American people.’ You gotta watch this guy. Something’s going on with him.’” — In Egypt, with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat “when they did the motorcade through Alexandria,” where an estimated 1 million people greeted Carter.
Ojai photojournalist Arthur Grace recalls his years covering President Jimmy Carter
story by MARIANNE RATCLIFF photos courtesy of ARTHUR GRACE