President of the NAACP Eugene Edge shares Carter’s inspiration for Ibri Technical Institute

Published 8:19 pm Wednesday, October 2, 2024

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President of the Sumter County branch of the NAACP, Eugene Edge, spoke of how he first came to meet President Jimmy Carter as a contractor: “He needed some help at the pond house because the dam had broke.” Edge told how someone referred him to Carter. “Someone told him ‘Well, you know, get Eugene, he will probably help you do what you need to do.’ So I went over and we sort of built the damn back up, put pipes in and everything. And he asked me if I would, you know, just stay with him because he had a lot of things he needed done.”

He mentioned that at the time, Carter wasn’t in the physical shape to do as much as he used to. Edge ended up working to help Carter with different projects. Edge told how the visits would become a regular routine: “I would go to his house every day.”

Edge mentioned that their relationship spanned different facets, including a work relationship, a political relationship, and a personal one. “So we dealt in all of them. I had a personal relationship and work relationship with him.”

One of these discussions inspired Edge: “One particular morning, when I went to his office, he shared with me of a man by the name of Bishop Decker Johnson, whom I had never heard of before who started a small college near Plains, in Archery.”

Edge mentioned he was inspired to re-search the college, telling Carter “one day when I’m able to I will do the same thing. I will mirror the same thing that he did. So that’s where the Ibri technical Institute was born out of that idea from what president Carter shared with me on that man.”

Edge talked about the impact of the experiences Carter shared with him. “He shared a lot of things each morning that we sat and talked, and you know that’s one of the reasons why I had great admiration for him, because of the things that he shared with me of his boyhood and things in the black community, him growing up in a community with only 25 families there, and you know there was only two white families and the rest of them were, you know, were black families.”

Edge recounted things he had received from Carter. “I still have some things of his that I’ve had ever since I left. I kept those things near to me. As a matter of fact, I have a bottle of wine that he and I made. We would go out to Miss Dodson’s Farm and we’d pick the grapes and we’d take them to his house and we’d squeeze the grapes and mash them and we’d strain, let them ferment, and we’d strain them. The only time that he would, you know, give out a bottle of wine it was when a dignitary came to the house that he was meeting and he’d open up a bottle of wine, never gave them out, it wasn’t for sale or anything. And to this day, I’m the only person who has a bottle of that wine, never been opened, and I have a letter of authenticity with it.”

Edge told how Carter’s conversation sparked plans for the bottle: “I have that, and I’ve been thinking about it, auctioning it off, and I want to auction it off to buy this building to put my school up top, Ibri Technical institute . . . so I can train young boys and girls skilled [in] trades. That’s my objective, is to sell that bottle of wine, and open a school.”

Edge mentioned Carter gave it to him in 1996. “I had the bottle of wine, maybe about, maybe ten years, and I said, ‘well let me get a letter of authenticity.’” He told of calling Carter about the bottle. “He said ‘well, bring the bottle to me, let me see if it’s mine first.’ So I took the bottle over to him and he said ‘Okay, yeah,’ and then he wrote me a letter of authenticity, and it’s got his seal on it, and that’s my intentions.”