PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Johnny Jones found out The death of Jimmy Carter within minutes. That’s how it works in a small town, even for a former US president and Nobel Peace Prize winner known around the world.
“Someone 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 age 100, surrounded by family in the one-story home where he and his family died. were women. Rosalynn, built before he launched his first political campaign more than sixty years ago.
“His presence here in Plains has really boosted the morale of everyone who lives here,” said Jones, 85, as he recalled warm conversations with “Mr. Jimmy” and “Mrs. Rosalynn, “who died in November 2023.
The Carters put this town of fewer than 700 residents – not much bigger than when Carter was born on October 1, 1924 – on the world stage. His remarkable rise to the White House, his crushing defeat in 1980 and his subsequent rehabilitation as a freelance diplomat and global humanitarian were reflected Monday in tributes from Plains residents and around the world.
Megan Varner via Getty Images
Not far from where Jones sat on his porch, black ribbons hung next to American flags flying in front of the souvenir shops and cafes that form the core of Plains’ main street, which stretches just a few blocks from Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — the old train depot – where the family once operated its peanut warehouses. Television cameras and news vans lined the street that runs in front of the old gas station, where the former president’s late brother, Billy Carter, was once scheduled to appear in court with national reporters covering his older brother.
Across the railroad tracks, Philip Kurland stood in his political memorabilia store, which he opened years after the Carters returned from Washington, and remembered the former president not as a famous figure but as an approachable neighbor who once prayed with him when he was sick.
“We are in a state of denial,” he said. “I told people, let’s start planning his 101st birthday.”
At Maranatha Baptist Church, where the Carters have long taught Sunday school, a handful of residents trickled in Monday evening for a silent vigil. A piano played softly as people lit candles at the altar, with Christmas trees lit on either side.
In Washington, plans continued for the state rituals that will cement Carter’s global status. President Joe Biden confirmed that January 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 confirmed to the Carter family that the former president will lie in state from January 7 to 9, when his remains will be transported to the cathedral for the state funeral.
In New York, the fifteen members of the UN Security Council paid a silent tribute to the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. US Deputy Ambassador Dorothy Shea read a statement from the UN’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 promotion of human rights and the strengthening of democracy, both during his term 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 building ties between Beijing and Washington. “We highly commend his achievements,” Geng said, stating that Carter “has made great contributions to cooperation between the two countries over the years.”
Prominent Egyptian rights defender Hossam Bahgat, a fierce critic of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s government, said Carter was among the first to warn of “Israeli apartheid” against the Palestinians – a position that put Carter at odds with a much of the US. establishment of foreign policy.
“What a profile of courage,” Bahgat wrote on Facebook. “He already warned about Israeli apartheid in 2007. He stayed true to his principles and moral standards because he understood his mission and stayed true to his beliefs, without trying to please donors or appease hedge fund-heavy boards.”
Back in Georgia, neighbors from the Carter Center in Atlanta gathered near the site where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter would redefine what a post-presidency can be. The Carters founded the Carter Center in 1982 and for four decades oversaw diplomatic missions, election monitoring and public health programs with operations spanning five continents.
“I really appreciate him as an ex-president, what he has done since he left office,” said Richard Hopkins, an Atlanta resident.
Hopkins said Carter’s public service went beyond elected office. Hopkins, a Korean War veteran, noted that Carter, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was a submarine officer after World War II. He also highlighted the Carters’ work with Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for low-income people. The Carters’ involvement with Habitat was in addition to their work at the Carter Center; they headlined their own annual builds until the early 1990s.
Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, said the Carters were an integral part of Habitat’s growth.
“Most people think President Carter founded and led Habitat, which is actually not true,” he said Monday. “But what is true is that Habitat was founded in 1976, and it was a small organization in 1984, when President and Mrs. Carter famously wrote a bus from South Georgia to spend a week in the basement of a church sleep and renovate a tenement on the coast. Lower East Side of Manhattan. Then the world heard about Habitat.”
Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson and now chairman of the Carter Center’s board of directors, said in a recent interview that the former president formed that lifelong commitment to service because of Plains.
“My grandfather could go to any village anywhere in the world,” the younger Carter said, and help people without patronizing them. “Because he himself came from such a village.”
Some residents, like Jones, worry about their small town now that the Carters are gone.
“Interest in Plains will decline,” 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 praised the Carters for ensuring a lasting impact in Plains, just as they have done globally through the Carter Center.
“Ever since Rosalynn passed away, he wanted to be with her. So it’s a great thing to know that he’s finally reunited with Rosalynn. But for those of us who selfishly wanted to keep him here forever, I’m in that camp,” Stuckey said.
But the Carters, she pointed out, had long ago planned to be buried in the same city where they were born, married and spent most of their lives. Rosalynn Carter is already buried in a plot visible from the porch of the family home. The house and grave will eventually be added to the National Park.
Stuckey said, “I think they kind of set us up for success.”
Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press journalists Cara Anna in Cairo, Haya Panjwani in Houston, Edith Lederer in New York and Ron Harris in Atlanta contributed.