Asa Earl Carter

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Asa Earl Carter (September 4, 1925 – June 7, 1979) was an American speechwriter and author. He worked as a speechwriter for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama, whom he later turned against by running his own unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. Under an assumed identity as 'Forrest Carter,' he published Westerns and a fake autobiography, The Education of Little Tree, in which he portrays himself as having been orphaned into the care of Cherokee grandparents. The publisher's remarks in the original edition describe him (inaccurately) as "Storyteller in Council" to the Cherokee Nation, but in 1976, as the book became a huge success, Forrest Carter was revealed to be Asa Earl Carter. (photo [1])

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[edit] Early life and political career

Asa Carter was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1925, the eldest of four children. He was raised in nearby Oxford, Alabama by his parents, Ralph and Hermione Carter, both of whom lived into Carter's adulthood.

Carter served in the United States Navy during World War II and attended the University of Colorado. After the war, he married India Thelma Walker. The couple had four children and settled in Birmingham, Alabama.

Asa Carter was an active participant in several white supremacist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens' Council. He was also a speechwriter for governor of Alabama, George Wallace, and is credited with the slogan, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". Although Carter claimed to be part Cherokee, he ran for governor of Alabama in 1970 on a white supremacist platform. However, he came in last of five candidates, winning only 1.51% of the vote in an election comfortably won by George Wallace.

[edit] Literary career

After losing the election, Carter relocated to Florida and then Texas, where he reinvented himself and began his career as a novelist. He distanced himself from his past, began to call his sons "nephews" and renamed himself Forrest Carter, in honor of Southern Civil War general Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Carter's best-known fictional works are Gone to Texas: The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales (1973) and The Education of Little Tree (1976). Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a 1976 film adaptation of the former, retitled The Outlaw Josey Wales. In 1997, The Education of Little Tree was adapted into a made-for-TV movie but was instead given a theatrical release.

Carter completed one more novel, Watch for Me on the Mountain, a fictionalized biography of Geronimo. He was working on The Wanderings of Little Tree, a sequel to The Education of Little Tree and a screenplay version of the book when he died in 1979 from injuries he received in a fistfight.

[edit] Controversy and criticism

Carter spent the last part of his life concealing his background as a Klansman and racist speechwriter, claiming categorically in a 1976 New York Times article that he, Forrest, was not Asa Carter.

In 1985, the University of New Mexico Press bought rights to publication of Carter's book The Education of Little Tree, which had been the focus of considerable controversy since shortly after its 1976 publication.

The story (originally to be called "Me and Grandpa", according to the book's introduction) centers on the relationship between the boy and his Scottish-Cherokee grandfather, a man named Wales (an overlap with Carter's other fiction). The fictional memoir is written from the perspective of a boy orphaned at age five, as he becomes accustomed to his new home in a remote mountain hollow with his "Indian thinking" 'Granpa' (sic) and Cherokee 'Granma', who call him 'Little Tree.' Granpa runs a small whiskey operation during Prohibition, and the Great Depression. The grandparents and visitors to the hollow expose Little Tree to Cherokee ways and "mountain people" values. The state eventually removes him to an orphanage, where he stays for a few months until an old Indian friend intimidates the Reverend in charge into allowing Little Tree's release.

Carter claimed that he was Little Tree and the events of the book were autobiographical. The book was first marketed to young readers as a "memoir" with "a true story" printed on the cover. When Carter's background was revealed, the book was reclassified by the publisher as fiction, although the publisher never amended the introduction or book jacket with explicit caveats to that effect. Despite controversy surrounding the author's identity and legitimacy, The Education of Little Tree was critically acclaimed and won the 1991 American Booksellers Book of the Year (ABBY) award.

In his personal life, even before his name and identity change, Carter often claimed that he had distant maternal Cherokee ancestry. The now-defunct Delacorte Press, original publishers of "Little Tree", referred to Carter as a Cherokee "Storyteller in Council." However, members of the Cherokee nation have disputed this claim, saying also that so-called "Cherokee" words and customs in "The Education of Little Tree" are inaccurate, and that the novel's characters are stereotyped.

Several scholars and critics have agreed with this assessment, adding that Carter's treatment of Native Americans plays into the romantic but racist concept of the "Noble Savage".

After Carter's death, the fact that Forrest Carter was actually Asa Earl Carter was again exposed (following the original 1976 New York Times expose) by Dan T. Carter, a distant cousin and history professor. The supposed autobiographical truth of The Education of Little Tree was revealed to be a hoax.

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography

Books by Forrest Carter

  • Gone to Texas (1973)
  • The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales (1976)
  • The Education of Little Tree (1976)
  • Watch for Me on the Mountain (1978)

Books about Carter's faking of ethnicity

  • Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities (Laura Browder, 2003)
  • Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination (Shari M Huhndorf, 2004)
  • Native American Fiction: A User's Guide (David Treuer, 2006)

Articles about Carter's faking of ethnicity

  • Is Forrest Carter Really Asa Carter? Only Josey Wales May Know for Sure (Wayne Greenshaw: New York Times 1976)
  • "Authenticity", or the Lesson of Little Tree (Henry Louis Gates, Jr: New York Times Book review 1991)
  • Widow of 'Little Tree' Author Admits He Changed Identity (Calvin Reid: Publishers Weekly 1991)


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