CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — In June 1979, the sun shone like this: Rosalynn Carter I made my way through an enthusiastic crowd in Laconia, New Hampshire.
“She shook my hand!” exclaimed one delighted participant.
first woman She was in the state to campaign for her husband’s re-election, but this was not a political rally. Instead, she found herself in a vast, 75-year-old facility established for “feebleminded” children that the U.S. Department of Justice deemed a “classic example of warehousing.” She was joined by her comrade, Gov. Hugh Gallen, who was pushing to correct the dire conditions in the state and state mental hospitals.
“To go to a place like Laconia State Schools and talk to people who are not voters but are dealing with very serious issues, well, it doesn’t happen very often. It didn’t happen then, and it certainly doesn’t happen now. That’s not the case,” recalled Dayton Duncan, who was present as Mr. Gallen’s press secretary.
“She could have given a good speech about what the administration wanted and left it at that,” Duncan said. “But the fact that she went to Laconia State School and met the people who work there, the children who are warehoused there and the parents was special.”
After leaving the White House, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter launched a program to monitor elections in at least 113 countries, among other things. Almost eradicated the Guinea worm parasite In developing countries.but former president He said the Carter Center would have been successful if it had accomplished nothing more than his wife’s mental health work.
That’s according to Kathy Cade, deputy director of the Atlanta-based center and a longtime aide to Rosalynn Carter, and others who know the couple. They spoke to The Associated Press in the months leading up to the incident. Rosalynn Carter passed away on Sunday. At 96 years old.
“I don’t think there has been another leader in the mental health field who has had a greater impact on mental health care and access to care and the way we think about mental health and mental illness than Mrs. Carter,” Cade said. . “And I think it has to do with her incredible interest in this issue and her perseverance over 50 years.”
what evolved A lifelong crusade It began during Carter’s 1966 Georgia gubernatorial campaign. Almost every day, Rosalyn was visited by voters worried about their loved ones in overcrowded psychiatric hospitals. Early one morning, she spoke to a tired textile mill worker and explained that she was working opposite shifts from her husband to care for her mentally ill daughter.
“The image of that woman stuck with me all day,” Rosalynn Carter wrote in her 2010 book “Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis.” That night, she went to her husband’s campaign rally and stood in line to shake his hand.
“I’m here to see what you’re going to do to help people with mental illness if you become governor,” she told the surprised candidate.
Jimmy Carter responded by creating a state commission to improve services for people with mental illness. Later, as president, he established the National Commission on Mental Health, which led to the passage of the Mental Health Care Act of 1980, a major change in federal policy that sought to treat people with mental illness in the community. A review has been carried out.
Rosalynn Carter is the committee’s honorary co-chair and a driving force behind the legislation, traveling the country to hear from experts and the public alike and share her findings with Congress. Although the law was effectively repealed during the Reagan administration, supporters argue that it set the framework for many of the advances that followed.
At the Carter Center, she created a program dedicated solely to mental health in 1991 and eventually established a fellowship for journalists to cover the subject. Years later, she lobbied Congress to pass landmark legislation requiring insurance companies to provide equal mental health coverage.
say those who have worked with her for decades. Carter’s achievements It was rooted in her compassion and listening skills.
“Her power comes from the heart,” said Cynthia Wainscott, former president of the national nonprofit Mental Health America. “She’s very, very sweet and listens to people very well. When you’re talking to her, she might have three conversations going on around you, but if she’s talking to you… I can tell you’re paying attention, and she hears you.”
She was also an effective and inspiring mobilizer with keen instincts, Wainscott said.
While preparing for the annual mental health symposium, Carter once suggested reaching out to polling organizations to refine key messages. It states that 20% of Americans will suffer from a mental illness in any given year. The pollster conducted focus groups and found that while people don’t believe this statistic, one in five Americans actually do believe it.
“When you hear 20%, you have to imagine 100 people and 20 of them are sick, and that’s complex and inhumane. When you say 1 in 5, people are sick at work, at school. , thinking about the neighborhood,” said Wainscott, who is also president of the National Mental Health Association of Georgia.
“If she hadn’t been in that room, none of us would have thought about asking pollsters to tell us how to phrase it,” she said. “It was great.”
Journalist Bill Lichtenstein considered Rosalynn Carter to be “the patron saint of all those dealing with mental health and behavioral issues.”
Mr. Lichtenstein, who runs a media production company in Boston, was an investigative reporter for ABC News when he suffered from manic depression in 1986. Although he went on to create an award-winning show about recovery from mental illness, he still remembers feeling left out at the time. He revealed his own struggles. Carter’s desire to reduce that stigma is at the heart of her accomplishments, he said.
“At the end of the day, the most insidious and difficult hurdles for all, whether it’s talking about increasing research funding or ensuring that people with a history of mental health are on a level playing field when it comes to employment and renting apartments, “That’s prejudice,” he said.
Lichtenstein serves on the advisory board of the Carter Center’s Mental Health Journalism Fellowship Program, which over the years has provided support to more than 220 journalists in the United States and six other countries.
Marion Shah, a South African freelance journalist and author, was awarded the Fellowship in 2005. The headline of her first article was “When is it more than just a bad day?” It was published in a men’s health magazine along with phone numbers for mental health organizations. She said the reaction was strong in a country where prejudice runs deep.
“The phone kept ringing for three weeks,” she said. “They had to hire additional counselors to handle the calls.”
Shah is currently offering a mental health journalism fellowship in South Africa with local sponsorship. Such synergy shows the impact of Carter and her center’s fellowship, and without her tenacity, Cade said, it would not have happened.
Carter was a “woman of action.” Not content with simply gathering experts to discuss, she brainstormed ways to change policy by changing attitudes, Cade said, and as she sat down with her advisers, she said, “What can we do?” Is that so?” I remember him saying. What else can I do? ”
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Associated Press reporter Holly Reimer was awarded the 2017-18 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship in Mental Health Journalism.
