David Carter has found time to write a book and serve his community, all while teaching history.
"I really like to interact with students and play with this idea that the past isn't dead," said Carter, professor of history. "There's a William Faulkner quote that says, 'The past is never dead, it's not even past,' so I enjoy talking to students about the ways in which this history that on one hand was before any of you all were alive, but on the other hand, the echoes of that history are still very much with us."
Carter's book, "The Music has Gone Out of the Movement: Civil Rights and the Johnson Administration, 1965-1968," examines how President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to respond to the challenges of the Civil Rights Movement in the last years of his administration.
"I got interested in the last few years of his term when most people oversaw LBJ's preoccupation with Vietnam," Carter said. "I was interested in thinking about how LBJ was responding to this series of urban rights that were breaking out then and just trying to argue against this interpretation that suggests civil rights ends in 1965.
"I saw a lot of things happening all through 1968 that were worth looking at."
Carter's background in history began because his father was a historian.
"I also had a high school history teacher that really influenced me a lot to think I might want to teach history as a career," Carter said.
He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of North Carolina and his doctorate from Duke, which he said "led some people to accuse me of schizophrenia because of the basketball rivalry up there."
His 12-year tenure at Auburn began in 2000, and history professor Joseph Kicklighter said teaching comes naturally to Carter.
"We teach a lot of people, and it's not like you can be just a great scholar and teach all these folks and do a good job," Kicklighter said. "He did such interesting research. I have known him since the day he got here. He has a very dynamic personality and he's the kind of person that's easy to talk to and easy to get to know, and I knew the students would love him."
Kicklighter said Carter is involved with numerous political groups in Auburn, including his role as adviser for the College Democrats.
"He's very active personally and professionally as a historian and as a citizen," Kicklighter said. "This is an individual who is very involved with his community, state and party."
For the last six years Carter has served on the Presbyterian Community Ministry, which helps provide access to better housing and, more recently, utility assistance to low income Lee County residents.
He is currently teaching two classes, one about the Civil Rights Movement and the other an honors section of world history.
Marian Royston, junior in history, said Carter is engaging and informative.
"I am working on my honors thesis under Dr. Carter, so I've gotten to know him a little more than the average student," Royston said. "I have never questioned his expertise, and he doesn't intimidate students like other professors."
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