Jimmy Carter is being mourned in his tiny hometown and around the world
Associated Press
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Johnny Jones found out about Jimmy Carter’s death within a matter of minutes. That’s how it works in a small town, even for a former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner known throughout the world.
“Somebody texted my wife and told her about it — that’s when I found out,” Jones said Monday, a day after the 39th president died at the age of 100, surrounded by family in the one-story house he and his late wife, Rosalynn, built before he launched his first political campaign more than 60 years ago.
“His presence here in Plains has really boosted the morale of everyone who lives here,” said Jones, 85, as he recalled warm exchanges with “Mr. Jimmy” and “Ms. Rosalynn,” who died in November 2023.
Indeed, the Carters put this town of fewer than 700 people — not much bigger than when Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924 — on the world stage. His remarkable rise to the White House, landslide defeat in 1980 and rehabilitation thereafter as a freelance diplomat and global humanitarian were reflected Monday in tributes from Plains’ residents and around the world.
Not far from where Jones sat on his front porch, black ribbons hung alongside U.S. flags flying in front of the souvenir shops and cafes that make up the nucleus of Plains’ main street, which spans just a few blocks from Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — the old train depot — to where the family once operated its peanut warehouses. TV cameras and news trucks lined the street that runs in front of the old gas station where the former president’s late brother, Billy Carter, once would hold court with national journalists who covered his older brother.
Across the railroad tracks, Philip Kurland stood in his political memorabilia shop, which he opened years after the Carters returned from Washington, and recalled the former president not as a famous figure but an approachable neighbor who once prayed with him when he was sick.
“We’re in a state of denial,” he said. “I was telling people: Let’s start planning for his 101st birthday.”
At Maranatha Baptist Church, where the Carters long taught Sunday school, a handful of residents trickled in for a silent vigil Monday evening. A piano played softly as people lit candles at the altar, with lighted Christmas trees standing on either side.
In Washington, plans continued for the state rites that will affirm Carter’s global status. President Joe Biden confirmed that Jan. 9, 2025, will be a day of national mourning, with federal offices closed for Carter’s state funeral at the National Cathedral. Biden, a longtime Carter friend and political ally, will deliver a eulogy for his fellow Democrat. Congressional leaders have confirmed to the Carter family that the former president will lie in state from Jan. 7 to Jan. 9, when his remains will be transported to the cathedral for the state funeral.
In New York, the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council stood in silent tribute to the Nobel Peace Prize winner. U.S. deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea read a statement from the U.N.’s most powerful body at the start of an emergency meeting on Yemen.
“President Carter was a peacemaker who worked tirelessly and effectively in support of conflict mediation, the furtherance of human rights and the strengthening of democracy, both while he was in office and during his many years of service thereafter,” the Security Council statement said.
China’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Geng Shuang, remembered Carter as “a driving force” in establishing relations between Beijing and Washington. “We highly commend his achievements,” Geng said, stating that Carter “made great contribution over the years to … cooperation between the two countries.”
Prominent Egyptian rights defender Hossam Bahgat, a fierce critic of the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s government, said Carter was among the first to warn of “Israeli apartheid” against Palestinians — a position that put Carter at odds with much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
“Such a profile of courage,” Bahgat wrote on Facebook. “He warned of Israeli apartheid as early as 2007. He stood by his principles and moral standards because he understood his mission and stayed true to his beliefs without seeking to placate donors or please hedge-funder packed boards.”
Back in Georgia, neighbors of the Carter Center in Atlanta congregated near the grounds where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter would redefine what a post-presidency can be. The Carters established the Carter Center in 1982 and for four decades oversaw diplomatic missions, election monitoring and public health programs with operations that spanned five continents.
“I really appreciate him as an ex-president, what he’s done since” leaving office, said Richard Hopkins, an Atlanta resident.
Hopkins said Carter’s public service went beyond elected office. A Korean War veteran, Hopkins noted that Carter, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a submarine officer after World War II. He also highlighted the Carters’ work with Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for low-income people. The Carters’ Habitat involvement came in addition to their Carter Center work; they headlined their own annual builds into their early 90s.
Habitat for Humanity CEO Jonathan Reckford said the Carters were integral to Habitat’s growth.
“Most people think President Carter started and ran Habitat, which is not actually true,” he said Monday. “But what is true is Habitat was founded in 1976, and it was a tiny organization in 1984 when President and Mrs. Carter famously rode a bus up from south Georgia to spend a week sleeping in a church basement and rehabbing a tenement building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. That’s when the world found out about Habitat.”
Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson who now chairs the Carter Center’s governing board, said in a recent interview that the former president formed that lifelong commitment to service because of Plains.
“My grandfather could go to a village anywhere in the world,” the younger Carter said, and help people without patronizing them. “Because he was from a village like that himself.”
Some residents like Jones are worried about their small town now that the Carters are gone.
“Interest in Plains will dwindle,” he predicted.
Jill Stuckey, a longtime Carter friend who oversees the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park for the National Park Service, is more optimistic. She expressed personal sadness but commended the Carters for ensuring a lasting impact in Plains, just as they have globally through the Carter Center.
“Since the moment Rosalynn passed, he wanted to be with her. So knowing that he’s finally reunited with Rosalynn is a wonderful thing. But those of us who selfishly wanted to keep him here forever, I’m in that camp,” Stuckey said.
But the Carters, she emphasized, planned long ago to be buried in the same town where they were born, married and spent most of their lives. Rosalynn Carter already is buried in a plot visible from the front porch of the family home. The house and gravesite eventually will be added to the National Park.
Said Stuckey: “I think they’ve kind of set us up for success.”
___
Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press journalists Samy Magdy in Cairo, Haya Panjwani in Houston, Edith Lederer in New York and Ron Harris in Atlanta contributed.
