Hodding Carter III was born in New Orleans, La., on 7 April 1935 to journalist and publisher Hodding Carter II and Betty Werlein. He grew up in Greenville, Miss., and graduated from Princeton University in 1957. Carter served in the United States Marine Corps after college and then began working at the as a reporter, then managing editor, and finally associate publisher. Carter was co-chair of the delegation that ousted Mississippi's white Democratic Party delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. He participated in Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter's presidential campaigns and was named Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and State Department spokesman during the Jimmy Carter administration. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Carter worked in various capacities for public affairs television shows and was a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines. From 1995 to 1997, Carter taught journalism at the University of Maryland. He became president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 1998. In January 2006, Carter became the University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Carter married Patricia Derian, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights under President Jimmy Carter, in 1978. Delta Democrat-Times The collection primarily includes Carter's personal and professional correspondence. There are materials relating to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and materials relating to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as well as datebooks, clippings, and other items. Topics include human rights, civil rights, race relations, politics, the Democratic Party, community activism, and other issues.
