Jimmy Carter, the former president who changed the definition of a post-presidency, passed away on Sunday. He was 100 years old. The former president passed away at his Plains home at approximately 3:45 p.m., according to his son Chip Carter. After several brief hospital stays, Carter, who lived longer than any other U.S. president, entered home hospice care in Plains, Georgia, in February 2023.
Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian elected to the White House, served one term, which was dominated by the Iran hostage crisis but distinguished by his efforts to bring peace between Israel and Egypt. His work at the Carter Center in Atlanta with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, and his support of charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity helped him gain notoriety in the decades that followed.
For hundreds of years, people will be commemorating Jimmy Carter. In his book “The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter,” Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University, stated that “his reputation is only going to grow.” The first of four children born to farmer and businessman Earl Carter and registered nurse Lillian Gordy Carter, James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains on October 1, 1924.
After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, he joined the Navy submarine branch, and, within seven years, he rose to the rank of “Rickover’s boys,” the prestigious new American nuclear submarine fleet led by the legendary Admiral Hyman Rickover. Before a death at home altered his course, Carter was on his way up.
Earl, his father, a farmer, businessman, and pillar of the Plains community, passed away from cancer. In 1953, Carter, Rosalynn, and their expanding family returned to Georgia to take over the family property after leaving the Navy and its distant assignments, including Hawaii. He ran there for state senate after first running for school board.
In 1970, he was elected governor. Before making an unlikely run for the presidency, Carter served one term with success. He won the Democratic nomination and defeated Republican President Gerald Ford in November 1976.
Instead of taking an armored limousine past the people on his inauguration day, Jimmy and Rosalynn got out with their daughter Amy in tow and waved and held hands as they walked down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Carter’s accomplishments included advancing human rights, expanding the national park and preserve system, restoring government trust during the Watergate Crisis, and negotiating a peace deal between Egypt and Israel through the Camp David Accords.
Trouble both domestically and internationally overshadowed them. At home, Carter’s own party opposed him and his advisors, the majority of whom were outsiders from Washington. Then, Iranian militants captured the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979. He attempted to negotiate before beginning a daring rescue attempt that was unsuccessful due to a chopper malfunction. Until the final day of his administration, he was unable to find a solution.
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He was defeated in November 1980 at home due to a faltering economy made worse by oil embargoes from the Middle East and the rising of the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan. Returning to the small town of Plains, Carter utilized the bully pulpit of an ex-president to launch his final—and, some would argue, best—act.
Carter started helping to build homes for the underprivileged as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, a relatively new organization established in Americus. After that, Jimmy and Rosalynn established the Carter Center in Atlanta, which worked to promote democracy, health, and peace globally. It will advance the couple’s democratic and humanitarian endeavors.
He received numerous noteworthy honors from nations, organizations, and international leaders for his efforts as president and as the head of the Carter Center, including the Nobel Prize and the United Nations Human Rights Prize. President Bill Clinton presented the Carters with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Clinton stated that “no other couple on the face of the planet has done more good things for more people in more places than Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.”
In November 2023, Jimmy Carter’s wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, passed away. Their children, Amy, Chip, Jack, and Jeff, as well as their eleven grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren, survive them.
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