On this Martin Luther King holiday, I find myself thinking more about Jimmy Carter than about King. These two fellow Georgians wouldn’t seem related in the sense that thoughts of one should evoke thoughts of the other, but they do. Why? I think the cause of their seeming to be connected lies more in my memory than in any similarity they may or may not share with each other. That is to say, they evoke very different responses within me, a native Georgian old enough to have lived through the rise to notoriety of both of these men. I have known the times before them, during them, and after them.

A while back, I saw Jimmy Carter at a press conference announcing his cancer. He was planning to undergo treatment at Emory. He said, with his customary graciousness and his famous smile, that he was “at peace,” and that he planned to continue teaching his Baptist Sunday school class. He’s well into his nineties now, I think. One still sees the charm, the idealism, and the niceness. Jimmy Carter is the embodiment of post-civil war gentility, the kind that was modified from its original antebellum cavalier character to that which was created by the great fundamentalist revival that swept the South during the crushing poverty of Reconstruction, creating the cultural result known today as the “Bible belt.”

I don’t intend here to delve into a civil war discussion of any kind. That’s been done to death. But no one can understand the South, represented by the faces of both Carter and King, without recognizing a single fundamental truth of the war: it wasn’t about slavery, but about freedom. I believe that Martin Luther King would acknowledge that; I don’t know that Carter would. And that accounts for the different responses within me that each man evokes.

The war was a success insofar as it is quite possible to beat a free people into total submission; it was a failure in that it’s impossible to free anybody. Subsequent wars in other countries, like Viet Nam for example, have proved that truth repeatedly, though neither war-makers nor law-makers seem able to accept it. An entire U.S. (white) army could not free slaves in the South. But a people, nation, or race, can be led into freedom by someone like Moses, Ghandi, Mandela—or Martin Luther King, who understood this fundamental truth about freedom in the light of Christianity rather than political philosophy. For whatever else he was, he was also theReverend Martin Luther King, and a Reverend who, despite his personal flaws, did not leave his faith behind in pursuit of political and social aims. Thus he did not “confront” white America with violence, or even the threat of violence—he was not concerned with white people. Instead, he helped black America recognize their freedom as children of God, to accept it, the burden of it, and the dignity of it. Such acceptance is by its very character and nature, non-hostile. It commands respect; it does not demand it. True freedom is always characterized by the absence of anger and blame.

I heard a story once—I don’t know if it’s true—of two southern men who had lived in the same houses all their lives. The white man owned the property on which the black man lived. The latter came, once a month, to the back door of the white man’s house to pay his rent. They were always very polite to each other. (This ubiquitous politeness rings true to my memory, truer than trashy films and novels.) There came a day after de-segregation when the black man arrived to pay his rent, and the white man told him to come to the front door. The black man walked around the house and the front door stood open, waiting for him. The white man apologized for the years the black man came to the back door, but the black man said, “Never mind. The truth is that neither one of us knew any better.”

I don’t know if the story is true, but I’d like to believe it is. Neither of them knew any better. I’d like to believe they sat down on the front porch and shared a little bourbon. I do know that some of the black students and colleagues, friends and lovers I’ve known since those early days had some forgiving to do. And I understand that they couldn’t even begin to do that until they were free—free from blaming, and from self-blame. Because the truth is you didn’t know any better. And as long as blame rules, there will be enslavement. Martin Luther King was a free man.

A recent news story reported that Carter’s cancer had been cured by specialized treatment at Emory, a series of injections that cost more than 150,000 dollars each. He is said to be totally cancer-free now. That’s wonderful—if wonderfully expensive. I saw him elected, defeated, and then rise again like a phoenix of righteousness in his pursuit of good and noble deeds, like Habitat for Humanity and other endeavors for which he continues working, just as he continues to teach his Sunday school class in his nineties. That’s admirable. Indeed, Carter is above criticism; he is, like all Southern gentlemen, worthy of admiration, respect, and emulation. I’ve never met him personally, yet I feel that I know him very well. But I don’t know if he’s free. I hope so.