Jimmy Carter’s six-day state funeral begins with a motorcade in Georgia

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Jimmy Carter The long public farewell began Saturday in South Georgia, where the life of the 39th US president began more than 100 years ago.

A column with Carter’s flag-draped coffin began at America’s Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, where former Secret Service agents who protected the late president served as pallbearers and walked alongside the hearse as it left the medical center campus.

The Carter family, including the former president’s four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will join their patriarch in a procession that will take his remains through his beloved hometown of Plains and past his boyhood home on the way to Atlanta.

Carter died at his home in Plains on December 29 at the age of 100.

Families lined the procession route in downtown Plains, near the historic train depot where Carter led his presidential campaign. Some carried bouquets of flowers or wore commemorative pins with Carter’s photo on them.

“We want to pay our respects,” said 12-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock, who was born more than 30 years after Carter left the White House in 1981. “He was ahead of his time in what he tried to do and tried to accomplish.”

It was Shelbrock’s idea to make the trip to Plains from Gainesville, Florida, with his grandmother, Susan Cone, 66, so they could witness the beginning of Carter’s final journey. Shelbrock said he admires Carter his humanitarian work building houses and make peaceand for installing solar panels on the White House.

Carter and his late wife Rosalynnwho died in November 2023, was born in Plains and lived most of their lives in and around the city, with the exception of Jimmy’s career in the Navy and his terms as Governor and President of Georgia.

The procession stops in front of Carter’s home on his family farm just outside Plains. The National Park Service will ring the old farm bell 39 times to honor his place as the 39th president. Carter’s remains will then head to Atlanta for a moment of silence in front of the Georgia Capitol and a ceremony at the Carter Presidential Center.

He will remain in rest there until Tuesday morning, when he will be transported to Washington to lie in state at the US Capitol. His state funeral will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains for an invitation-only funeral. Maranatha Baptist Church.

He will be buried near his home, next to Rosalynn Carter.

Based in Atlanta, Bill Barrow has covered national politics since 2012, including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP.