Jimmy Carter and His Cousin, Berry Gordy
The late president was known for breaking down racial barriers in music — but had little if anything to do with Motown
When I was a kid I was told we were related to Jimmy Carter. I had some vague knowledge of my grandfather’s Southern roots, so I figured that was the connection. This was indeed true. I later learned that after Jimmy Carter had been elected, my grandfather, Bill Hodge (whom I called “Pop”), had written him a letter letting him know he had a cousin in Staten Island, NY. President-Elect Carter actually wrote Pop back (or I guess his secretary did, but still) and invited him to the inauguration. Pop didn’t go. Maybe because he was a Republican.
Fast-forward years later and I pursued this family legend. I feel like when people claim a famous relative, it’s usually royalty or a hall-of-fame athlete or some kind of celebrity. Not that Jimmy Carter wasn’t famous, but he wasn’t Paul Newman. He wasn’t even Gil Hodges. I’d also first heard about this connection when Carter was at a low point on the A-List. Maybe A-List in name, but I’d put him around a C in reputation. And Jimmy Carter himself clearly bought it, so taken together I thought he might be a cousin after all.
Pop’s dad, also named Bill Hodge, grew up in Northern Florida and came to NYC by way of WWI. He’d been a telegrapher for Western Union in St Petersburg, FL, and once he was drafted, the Navy put him to work doing the same out of Whitehall St in Lower Manhattan. He married a Brooklyn girl and stayed a Yankee until he died in 1947. This is a tiny strand of my family but one I know the most about. For one, I knew that Florida’s Bill Hodge had a mom named Mattie who married three times. Her second husband’s surname was Gordy, but I hadn’t been able to find a first name. And by now Pop was long gone, so I couldn’t ask.
I built a family tree for Jimmy Carter to see if somehow we could connect him to us. Jimmy Carter’s mother, known as Miss Lillian, was born Bessie Lillian Gordy. “This might be easier than I thought,” I thought. It wasn’t.
I did eventually find Husband #2’s first name: Gilford Gordy. He and Mattie married in 1921 when Gilford was 72. He died three years later. Gilford was from Midville, GA, which was nearly 200 miles away from Jimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains, GA — but only 18 miles from Miss Lillian’s hometown of Richland, GA.
Here’s what I was not able to find: A family connection between Gilford Gordy and Jimmy Carter. Even going back several generations. I’m inclined to believe they are related, but pretty distantly. And even if they are, our family is only related to Gilford Gordy through marriage, so there’s no blood relation there, and none to Jimmy Carter. Sorry, Pop.
But what I did discover, completely by accident, is that Jimmy Carter is related to Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records. And not distantly — they’re 2nd cousins, meaning they share a great-grandparent. (If you want to get technical, that makes them half-second cousins.)
Jimmy Carter and Berry Gordy’s great-grandfather was James Thomas Gordy. He was born in 1828 in Baldwin County, GA, and in 1864 enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving as a wagon master in Co. B., 6th Georgia State Militia. He died October 1889 in Chattahoochee, GA age 60. In between he married Harriet Helms in October 1854 and had eight children — Jimmy Carter’s grandfather, James Jackson Gordy, was child #4.
Two months before James Gordy was married, a woman he enslaved named Esther Johnson gave birth to his first child, Berry Gordy I. There are countless documents on the Gordy family, and the Gordy-Helms family, but next to nothing about Esther. We don’t even know for sure she was born in Georgia — we can only go by her son’s information in the 1880 census, where he says both his parents were born in Georgia. That would include James Gordy.
In 1850 and 1860 censuses, the federal government included a record of the enslaved, called Slave Schedules. In 1860, James Gordy is recorded as “Slave Owner” with six people in his possession. One woman, age 40, could be Esther, and the six-year-old boy could be Berry, but we don’t know because names of the enslaved weren’t recorded, only gender and age. In fact, the name “Esther Johnson” has been passed down through the family, though I can find no record of it. I am guessing that Berry Gordy told his son, Berry Gordy Jr, of his mother’s name and so on.
I’d like to focus on a few things: One is that between Jimmy Carter and Berry Gordy this is quite an accomplished family. Also, the fact that Berry Gordy’s roots began not that long ago with an enslaved ancestor and led to him founding the most legendary record label is miraculous. The other is that I can find no record of Jimmy Carter acknowledging this family connection. Neither does the press.
Many celebrate the fact that in 1979, then-President Carter decreed that June would be Black Music Appreciation Month. However, according to activist Dyana Williams, he never actually signed a Presidential Proclamation. For the next 10+ years, she took it upon herself, with help from Philadelphia Congressman Chaka Fattah, to get a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton. (House Concurrent Bill 509, 106th Congress.)
In an article printed yesterday in The New York Times, titled “Jimmy Carter Opened the White House to the Music He Loved” Jon Pareles writes that Aretha Franklin sang “God Bless America” at Carter’s inauguration. (Pop, you missed an event.) But nothing about Motown. (Aretha Franklin, though thought of as a Motown artist, was never signed by Motown.)
A Variety article, called “On Jimmy Carter’s Deep and Historic Connection With Musicians: Why He Is Remembered as the ‘Rock ’n’ Roll President’” author Noah Eckstein makes no mention of Berry Gordy or Motown. The following musicians include African-Americans but not from Motown:
In April, 1978 Loretta Lynn, Tom T. Hall, and Conway Twitty were invited to an evening devoted to celebrating country music. Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon, George Benson, Ron Carter and Tony Williams played a jazz event. It was an honor for Carter to bring jazz musicians who hadn’t been recognized by the government to the White House. He used music as a way for people to see a common humanity among different races, religions and cultural backgrounds. He felt jazz helped break down the racial divide in the country. Cecil Taylor, Chick Correa — their presence wasn’t just for performance. Their inclusion was a statement against racial prejudice, a reminder of music’s potential to dissolve barriers. Carter felt deeply that jazz and country music represented America.
He wasn’t wrong. I wish those sentiments were felt as strongly today — witness the outcry over Beyonce’s country album, coincidentally titled Cowboy Carter, and her halftime performance on Christmas.
I searched in The Root, The Tennessean, The Griot, Brooklyn Vegan, NPR, and even the Sydney Morning Herald. Silence when it came to Motown.
My belief is that Jimmy Carter pushed boundaries as much as he was willing, being a white Southerner. He also held back a lot, being a white Southerner. Heck, even a white American. And I don’t know what discussions, if any, were had with Berry Gordy and Motown. I would just like people to know that Jimmy Carter’s connection to Black music was blood-related, not just a Southern thing, not just country or jazz. It was family. For one brief shining moment, Motown was part of the White House.
THIS JUST IN: Ben Sisario has an article in today’s New York Times about Jimmy Carter and Berry Gordy. The conclusion is relatedness is possible, but not definite, though the family believed it was true:
[Jimmy Carter’s son] Jeff Carter devoted just one paragraph o [sic] the link in his 216-page “Ancestors of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter” (2012), which he said he had researched in part at the Georgia state archives. When asked by phone whether his father had known about the connection to Mr. Gordy before he conducted his research, Jeff Carter said, “When I found out about it, I asked Dad. He said, ‘Yeah, they all knew about it.’ It wasn’t a secret.”
Sources:
https://variety.com/2024/music/news/jimmy-carter-music-lover-rock-n-roll-president-1236013108/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/us/politics/jimmy-carter-rock-music.html
https://www.theroot.com/black-twitter-reacts-to-president-jimmy-carters-death-a-1851730056
https://thegrio.com/2024/12/29/former-president-jimmy-carter-proponent-for-black-civil-rights-dead-at-100/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/philadelphia-music-activist-godmother-black-music-month-n381201
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/jimmy-carter-former-president-and-music-lover-rip/
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/how-jimmy-carter-became-the-first-rock-n-roll-president-20241230-p5l164.html
