"Inherent racism" in the American people has been used by Donald Trump to boost his campaign.

This is according to former US President and evangelical preacher Jimmy Carter who offered a damning indictment of the Trump's candidacy. In an interview with The New York Times Carter said the Trump campaign's success was due to his "heavily racial overtone".

The 39^th President, now 91, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for promoting human rights around the world. He accused Trump of violating "basic human rights" in his targeting of Mexican and Muslim immigrants.

"When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that's a violation of basic human rights," said Carter.

The Democrat was raised a Southern Baptist and was the first US President to self-declare a born again Christian. Asked why many evangelicals had flocked to vote for Trump, Carter said the word evangelical was a misnomer.

"I consider myself an evangelical as well," he said. "Obviously what most of the news reporters thought were evangelicals are conservative Republicans...They have a heavy orientation to right-wing political philosophy, and he obviously is a proponent of that concept."

He said the country had been "reawakened" to the realisation that the problem of racism had not been resolved.

"I think there's a heavy reaction among some of the racially conscious Republicans against an African-American being president."

Trump's shock success to become the presumptive nominee for the Republican party was cause he "tapped a waiting reservoir of inherent racism".

Carter spoke as he aimed to bring his fellow Southern Baptists together to tackle social inequality.