Remembering the Impact of Rosalynn Carter

The former First Lady forged a humanitarian legacy all her own

- K.C. BAKER

No First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1945, had testified before Congress. But there, on Capitol Hill in February 1979, sat Rosalynn Carter before a Senate subcommittee, pushing for sweeping mental health services and funding, helping ensure the passage of the Mental Health Systems Act in October 1980. By that point the once painfully shy girl from rural Georgia had become a formidable voice known for championing women’s rights and humanitarian issues. “I was more of a political partner than a political wife,” she wrote in her 1984 memoir. Considered one of President Jimmy Carter’s most trusted advisers—she was the first presidential spouse to regularly sit in on Cabinet meetings—Rosalynn was, in her husband’s words, “an almost equal extension of myself.”