Carter started on Broadway at just nine years old in the musical The Me Nobody Knows. After runs in Tough To Get Help, Dude and Via Galactica, he landed his breakout role as Travis Younger in Raisin. For which, he won the 1973 Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Performer as well as the 1974 Theatre World Award and a nomination for the 1974 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Norman Lear was enjoying huge success in the 1970s, with the hit televisions series All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and Maude. Lear developed Good Times as a spin-off series for Maude's housekeeper, Florida Evans (portrayed by Esther Rolle) and her husband Henry, (John Amos), who was renamed James. Because of Carter's success in Raisin, Lear bought out the remainder of his Broadway contract to cast him as the first original character of Good Times, James and Florida's youngest son, Michael.
In 1975, Carter recorded an album called Young and in Love and performed the song "When You're Young and in Love" on Soul Train. That song, along with "Extra, Extra (Read All About It)", charted at No. 10 and No. 12 respectively. In 1985, he released a single called "Get it Right".

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