18 hours Ago By Bob Cronin
Amy Carter was 9 when she joined her parents in walking in Jimmy Carter's inaugural parade in 1977. She then lived in the national spotlight, becoming the first young child in the White House since Caroline and John Kennedy Jr—photographed roller-skating outside, dining with John Travota, and posing behind her father's desk in the Oval Office, per the . When she headed to class in the morning with her Secret Service detail, only the second child of a sitting president to attend public school, it was news.
When the Carters moved back to Georgia in 1981, the 13-year-old was happy to go. "She didn't like all the limelight that was put on her," said her fourth-grade teacher in Plains. "She preferred to just do young child things—walk up and down the railroad tracks, climb a tree, ride a bike," said Jan Williams, who taught her when her father was running for president.
Back in Plains, Jimmy and Rosalynn's youngest child also returned to private life. She did again made news as a teenager and young adult, per , when she was arrested for protesting apartheid in South Africa and US involvement in Nicaragua. "Amy is a very shy girl, contrary to the image you see projected in the news media," her father said at he time.
"But she believes very strongly in what she's doing." She attended Brown University, the Memphis College of Art, and Tulane University. Amy Carter, who lives in the Atlanta area and has taught art, has resurfaced in public since the deaths of her mother more than a year ago and her father on Dec.
29; she spoke at a service for her mother. No longer does it cause a flap if she reads a book at the table, as during the Carter administration's first state dinner in 1977, when she dived into . After etiquette critiques, the Carters' only daughter doubled down the next week at another state dinner, reading and .
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