Special Events at the Jimmy Carter Library & Museum

The Museum of the Jimmy Carter Library provides a unique experience for the visitor. Through displays of room settings, objects, documents, photographs, audio, and video, visitors can acquire a close-up view of the modern American Presidency.

Changing exhibits are drawn from the library and museum collections or are based on themes relating to the presidency and American political history. Many of these are traveling exhibitions from the Smithsonian Institution, other Presidential Libraries, and other museums around the world.

If you would like to be notified about upcoming exhibits, book signings, lectures or presentations, click here.

Our current schedule is:

Life Through the Lens "Photographs by Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr." Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - Sunday, June 27, 2010 Carter Presidential Library & Museum Free with Paid Admission to the Museum
As a 12 year-old Boy Scout, Howard Baker began an adventure with his camera that has lasted a lifetime. This exhibition of 50 large-format photographs runs the gamut from "glorious, unspoiled natural vistas of his native state to exotic locales afforded by his travels around the world to the pomp and circumstance of Washington, D.C."

Chang-Rae Lee "The Surrendered" Lecture & Book Signing Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, A Cappella Books & the Chattahoochee Review present Chang-Rae Lee, author of "The Surrendered". The bestselling, award-winning writer of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft will discuss and sign his biggest, most ambitious novel yet: a spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

Chang-Rae Lee
"The Surrendered"
Lecture & Book Signing
Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
Free and Open to the Public

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, A Cappella Books & the Chattahoochee Review present Chang-Rae Lee, author of "The Surrendered". The bestselling, award-winning writer of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft will discuss and sign his biggest, most ambitious novel yet: a spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

Film Screening "From A Whisper" Friday, March 26, 2010 at 7:30pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
Directed by one of Kenyan's up and coming female filmmakers is a film base on the real life events surrounding the August 7 twin bombing of US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 from the perspective of two local people. Post screening discussion will follow with Dr. Violet Johnson, Professor of History at Agnes Scott College, Atlanta. [More Information ]

Susan White "A Soft Place to Land" Lecture & Book Signing Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Center/Chapel Free and Open to the Public
For more than ten years Naomi and Phil Harrison enjoyed a marriage of heady romance, tempered only by the needs of their children. But on a vacation alone, the couple perishes in a flight over the Grand Canyon. After the funeral, their daughters, Ruthie and Julia, are shocked by the provisions in their will. Spanning nearly two decades, the sisters' journeys take them from their familiar home in Atlanta to sophisticated bohemian San Francisco, a mountain town in Virginia, the campus of Berkeley, and lofts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As they heal from loss, search for love, and begin careers, their sisterhood, once an oasis, becomes complicated by resentment, anger, and jealousy. It seems as though the echoes of their parents' deaths will never stop reverberating, until another shocking accident changes everything once again.

Susan White
"A Soft Place to Land"
Lecture & Book Signing
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Center/Chapel
Free and Open to the Public

For more than ten years Naomi and Phil Harrison enjoyed a marriage of heady romance, tempered only by the needs of their children. But on a vacation alone, the couple perishes in a flight over the Grand Canyon. After the funeral, their daughters, Ruthie and Julia, are shocked by the provisions in their will. Spanning nearly two decades, the sisters' journeys take them from their familiar home in Atlanta to sophisticated bohemian San Francisco, a mountain town in Virginia, the campus of Berkeley, and lofts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As they heal from loss, search for love, and begin careers, their sisterhood, once an oasis, becomes complicated by resentment, anger, and jealousy. It seems as though the echoes of their parents' deaths will never stop reverberating, until another shocking accident changes everything once again.

Mark Kurlansky "The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macor�s" Lecture & Book Signing Monday, April 26, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
Mark Kurlansky, author of the best-selling books Cod and Salt, turns his attention to baseball in his new book The Eastern Stars. It is a portrait of the town of San Pedro de Macor�s, a small impoverished community in the sugar growing region of the Dominican Republic that has so far produced 79 Major League baseball players with many minor leaguers waiting in the wings. It is a baseball story but also reveals the unusual history and rich culture of the Dominican Republic and the impact of baseball, which produces millionaires and can change the life of an entire family, on this struggling Caribbean town.

Mark Kurlansky
"The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of
San Pedro de Macor�s"
Lecture & Book Signing
Monday, April 26, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
Free and Open to the Public

Mark Kurlansky, author of the best-selling books Cod and Salt, turns his attention to baseball in his new book The Eastern Stars. It is a portrait of the town of San Pedro de Macor�s, a small impoverished community in the sugar growing region of the Dominican Republic that has so far produced 79 Major League baseball players with many minor leaguers waiting in the wings. It is a baseball story but also reveals the unusual history and rich culture of the Dominican Republic and the impact of baseball, which produces millionaires and can change the life of an entire family, on this struggling Caribbean town.

Hampton Sides "Hellbound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for his Assassin" Lecture & Book Signing Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man-whose real name was James Earl Ray-drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King's funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin's flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England-a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover's FBI. This is being co-sponsored by Acappella Books, the Decatur Book Festival and the Marcus Jewish Community Center.

Hampton Sides
"Hellbound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr.
and the International Hunt for his Assassin"
Lecture & Book Signing
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
Free and Open to the Public

On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man-whose real name was James Earl Ray-drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign.

With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King's funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin's flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England-a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover's FBI.

This is being co-sponsored by Acappella Books, the Decatur Book Festival and the Marcus Jewish Community Center.

David Donovan (Terry Turner) "Murphy Station" Lecture & Book Signing Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
Written by David Donovan, (the pen name of Terry T. Turner, Ph.D., former Professor of Urology and of Cell Biology, now Professor Emeritus, at the University of Virginia and author of "Once A Warrior King", Murphy Station has been called "a fascinating read"..." great"..."a personal story not often heard."

"An Evening of Jazz Under the Stars" Saturday, May 15, 2010 from 8:00pm-10:00pm Lawn in front of the Carter Presidential Library & Museum Free and Open to the Public
Bring a blanket or lawn chairs, a picnic or your favorite beverage and join us on the lawn in front of the Carter Presidential Library & Museum for our annual Atlanta Jazz Festival "Evening of Jazz Under the Stars."

Anya Kamenetz "DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education" Lecture & Book Signing Monday, May 17, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
Anya Kamenetz is a staff writer for Fast Company magazine. The Village Voice nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize for contributions to the feature series Generation Debt, which became a book in 2006. Her new book looks at the changes ahead for higher education. The price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last twenty years. Nine out of ten American high school seniors aspire to go to college, yet the United States has fallen from world leader to only the tenth most educated nation. Almost half of college students don't graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of federal and private student loan debt, which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis. Kamenetz argues that the future lies in personal learning networks and paths, learning that blends experiential and digital approaches, and free and open-source educational models.

Anya Kamenetz
"DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation
of Higher Education"
Lecture & Book Signing
Monday, May 17, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
Free and Open to the Public

Anya Kamenetz is a staff writer for Fast Company magazine. The Village Voice nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize for contributions to the feature series Generation Debt, which became a book in 2006. Her new book looks at the changes ahead for higher education. The price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last twenty years. Nine out of ten American high school seniors aspire to go to college, yet the United States has fallen from world leader to only the tenth most educated nation. Almost half of college students don't graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of federal and private student loan debt, which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis. Kamenetz argues that the future lies in personal learning networks and paths, learning that blends experiential and digital approaches, and free and open-source educational models.

Wes Moore "The Other Wes Moore" Lecture & Book Signing Monday, May 24, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Center/Chapel Free and Open to the Public
In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a huge story about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen? That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless, both were in and out of school; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies. Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

Wes Moore
"The Other Wes Moore"
Lecture & Book Signing
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Center/Chapel
Free and Open to the Public

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a huge story about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.

Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless, both were in and out of school; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

Wilbert Rideau "In the Place of Justice" Lecture & Book Signing Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 7:00pm Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater Free and Open to the Public
After killing a woman in a moment of panic following a botched bank robbery, Rideau, denied a fair trial, was improperly sentenced to death at the age of nineteen. After more than a decade on death row, his sentence was amended to life imprisonment, and he joined the inmate population of the infamous Angola penitentiary. Soon Rideau became editor of the prison newsmagazine The Angolite, which under his leadership became an uncensored, daring, and crusading journal instrumental in reforming the violent prison and the corrupt Louisiana justice system. In the Place of Justice goes far beyond the confines of a prison memoir, giving us a searing expos� of the failures of our legal system framed within the dramatic tale of a man who found meaning, purpose, and hope in prison. This is a deeply moving, eloquent, and inspirational story about perseverance, unexpected friendships and love, and the possibility that good can be forged under any circumstances.

Wilbert Rideau
"In the Place of Justice"
Lecture & Book Signing
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 7:00pm
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater
Free and Open to the Public

After killing a woman in a moment of panic following a botched bank robbery, Rideau, denied a fair trial, was improperly sentenced to death at the age of nineteen. After more than a decade on death row, his sentence was amended to life imprisonment, and he joined the inmate population of the infamous Angola penitentiary. Soon Rideau became editor of the prison newsmagazine The Angolite, which under his leadership became an uncensored, daring, and crusading journal instrumental in reforming the violent prison and the corrupt Louisiana justice system. In the Place of Justice goes far beyond the confines of a prison memoir, giving us a searing expos� of the failures of our legal system framed within the dramatic tale of a man who found meaning, purpose, and hope in prison. This is a deeply moving, eloquent, and inspirational story about perseverance, unexpected friendships and love, and the possibility that good can be forged under any circumstances.

BOOK NOOK WILL RESUME IN THE SPRING OF 2010 Preschool Visitors - Book Nook and Garden Safari Carter Presidential Library & Museum Lobby Free and Open to the Public
On select Mondays, Jimmy Carter Library staff and volunteers will read from a selection of story books in our library and conduct an outdoor Garden Safari. Story time will be offered in the museum lobby, at the colorful bean bag seating area by the Book Nook sign. Themes we will include are the presidency, leadership, growing up, roles adults play, etc. Simple language and colorful illustrations are included in every book. Colorful beanbag chairs are available to sit in. Best for ages 3-7. [ More Information ]

BOOK NOOK WILL RESUME IN THE SPRING OF 2010 Preschool Visitors - Book Nook and Garden Safari
Carter Presidential Library & Museum Lobby
Free and Open to the Public

On select Mondays, Jimmy Carter Library staff and volunteers will read from a selection of story books in our library and conduct an outdoor Garden Safari. Story time will be offered in the museum lobby, at the colorful bean bag seating area by the Book Nook sign. Themes we will include are the presidency, leadership, growing up, roles adults play, etc. Simple language and colorful illustrations are included in every book. Colorful beanbag chairs are available to sit in.

Best for ages 3-7.

[ More Information ]

****We record some of our author lectures at the Carter Library and, in partnership with public broadcasting atlanta, have them put on the web. If you want to see any of our lectures or lectures at other facilities, go to the Atlanta Forum Network's website... Here are some of our lectures... Lectures

The Museum is open from 9 a.m.to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 4:45 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $8.00 - Adults; $6.00 - Seniors (60+), Military, and students with IDs; Free - Children (16 and under). Parking - Free. The Museum is closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. For more information, please call 404-865-7101.

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum
441 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, Georgia 30307-1498
Telephone: (404) 865-7100
Fax: (404) 865-7102
Contact Us

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