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Amy Carter
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Amy Lynn Carter (born October 19, 1967) is the youngest of the four children and the only daughter of U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter.
Carter was born and raised, until her father's presidency, in Plains, Georgia, with her father serving as governor of the state for much of that period. Carter has three brothers who are roughly 15 to 20 years older than she is.
er lived in the White House for four years from the age of nine.
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Encyclopedia
Amy Lynn Carter (born October 19, 1967) is the youngest of the four children and the only daughter of U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter.
Biography
Early life
Amy Carter was born and raised, until her father's presidency, in Plains, Georgia, with her father serving as governor of the state for much of that period. Carter has three brothers who are roughly 15 to 20 years older than she is.
Life in the White House
Carter lived in the White House for four years from the age of nine. She was the subject of much media attention during this period, as young children had not lived in the White House since the early 1960s presidency of John F. Kennedy (and did not subsequent to the Carter presidency until the election of Barack Obama).
While in the White House, Carter had a Siamese cat named "Misty Malarky Ying Yang", who would be the last cat to occupy the White House until Socks, owned by Bill Clinton. Carter was also given an elephant from Sri Lanka from an immigrant. The elephant is currently in the National Zoo. She also had 39 teddy bears. Amy Carter attended Washington, DC, public schools, including Stevens Elementary School and Hardy Middle School as well as Tri-County High School in Buena Vista, GA. However, Carter struggled to make friends at the schools she attended, and she was not allowed outside for recess because the school's playground was too near the street. The next First Family to decide where to send a child, Bill and Hillary Clinton, chose to send their daughter to a private school.
Carter roller skated through the White House's East Room and had a treehouse on the South Lawn. However, historians claim she had a "lonely childhood" in the house. When she invited friends over for slumber parties in her treehouse, Secret Service agents monitored the event from the ground.
Carter did not receive the "hands off" treatment that the media later afforded to Chelsea Clinton. President Carter mentioned his daughter during a 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan, when he said he had asked her what the most important issue in that election was and she said, "the control of nuclear arms". Once, when asked whether she had any message for the children of America, Amy replied with a simple "No". Further controversy resulted when Carter was seen reading a book during a state dinner at the White House, which was seen as offensive to foreign guests.
Activism
Amy Carter later became known for her political activism, participating in a number of sit-ins and protests during the 1980s and early 1990s, aimed at changing U.S. foreign policy towards South African apartheid and Central America. Along with activist Abbie Hoffman and 13 others, she was arrested during a 1987 demonstration at the University of Massachusetts for protesting CIA recruitment there. She was acquitted of all charges in a well-publicized trial in Northampton, Massachusetts. Attorney Leonard Weinglass, who defended Abbie Hoffman in the Chicago Seven trial in the 1960s, utilized the necessity defense, successfully arguing that CIA involvement in Central America and other hotspots were equivalent to trespassing in a burning building. This occurred during Carter's sophomore year at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She was eventually dismissed from Brown for academic reasons and declined an opportunity to return.
Personal life
Amy Carter attended the prestigious Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland. She later earned a bachelor of fine arts degree (BFA) from the Memphis College of Art and a master's degree in art history from Tulane University in New Orleans.
Carter illustrated her father's 1995 children's book The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer.
In September 1996, Carter married computer consultant James Gregory Wentzel, whom she had met while attending Tulane. Carter chose not to be given away, stating that she "belonged to no one." Carter and Wentzel both kept their own family names. The couple moved to the Atlanta area, where they have focused on raising their son, Hugo James Wentzel (born July 29, 1999). Since the late 1990s, Carter has maintained a low profile, neither participating in public protests nor granting interviews. She is a member of the board of counselors of the Carter Center that advocates human rights and diplomacy as established by her father.
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