American politics: Jimmy Carter’s funeral begins by tracing 100 years from rural Georgia to the world stage

ATLANTA, Georgia — Jimmy Carter’s extended public farewell began Saturday in Georgia, with the flag-draped casket of the 39th U.S. president tracing his long journey from the Great Depression-era South and family farming business to the pinnacle of power American politics and decades as a global humanitarian.

Those chapters shone through the opening stanza of the six-day state funeral intended to mix personalized memorials with the ceremonial pomp afforded former presidents. Carter, America’s longest-serving leader, died on December 29 at the age of 100.

“He was an extraordinary man. He was supported, supported and soothed by an extraordinary woman,” his son James Earl “Chip” Carter III told mourners at the Carter Center Saturday afternoon, also referring to his mother, former first lady. Rosalynn Carter, died in 2023. “Together, they changed the world. And it was an incredible thing to watch so closely.”

Grandson Jason Carter, who now chairs the center’s board of directors, said, “It’s amazing what you can cram into a hundred years.” »

Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied their patriarch as his hearse passed through his hometown of Plains for the first time Saturday, which, with about 700 residents, is not much larger than when Carter was born there on October 1, 1924. The procession stopped at the farm. where the future president worked alongside the black sharecroppers who worked for his father. The motorcade continued toward Atlanta, stopping in front of the Georgia Capitol where Carter served as a state senator and reform governor.

Finally, he arrived for his final visit to the Carter Presidential Center, which houses his presidential library, and to the Carter Center where he based his post-White House advocacy for public health, democracy and human rights. man, thus setting a new standard for what former presidents can do. accomplish after ceding power.

“His spirit fills this place,” Jason Carter told the gathering that included some of the center’s 3,000 employees worldwide. “You are carrying on the living and vibrant legacy of my grandfather’s life’s work,” he added.

On Saturday, pallbearers came from the Secret Service that protected the Carters for nearly half a century and a military honor guard including Navy servicemen for the only U.S. Naval Academy graduate to reach the Bureau Oval. A military band played “Hail to the Chief” and the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” for the commander in chief who was also a devout Baptist.

His longtime personal pastor, the Rev. Tony Lowden, remembers not a president but the frail man who spent the last 22 months in hospice care, “wrapped in a blanket” that contained the words of Psalm 23 .

Chip Carter recalled “the boss” with whom he had to make an appointment in the Oval Office, but also the father who spent the entire Christmas vacation learning Latin and teaching his 8th grade son who had failed in an exam. When he took the test again, the younger Carter said he passed: “I owed it to my father, who spent that kind of time with me.”

Jimmy Carter will lie in state at the Carter Presidential Center from 7 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, with the public able to pay their respects 24 hours a day.

Scott Lyle, an engineer who grew up in Georgia but now lives in New York, was among the first mourners to pay their respects. Lyle said he first joined Carter in building homes with Habitat for Humanity in LaGrange, Ga., in 2003. Since then, he has traveled around the world building homes with the group.

“I got to see up close what some people can’t see. He was an amazing man and he cared about other people. He walked,” said Lyle, who wore a Carter-themed Habitat outfit. “And I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to line up to pay my respects to.”

National rites will continue in Washington and conclude Thursday with a funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains. There, the former president will be buried next to his wife of 77 years, near the home they built before his first Senate campaign in 1962.

The Carters lived almost their entire lives on the Plains, with the exception of his naval service, four years in the governor’s mansion and four years in the White House. As his hearse rolled through town, mourners lined the main street, some holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins bearing images of the former president and his trademark smile.

Willie Browner, 75, described Carter as coming from a bygone era of American politics.

“This man didn’t just think about himself,” said Browner, who grew up in the town of Parrott, about 15 miles from Plains. Browner said it means “a lot” that a president comes from a small Southern town like his – something he said is unlikely to happen again.

Indeed, Carter helped plan his own funeral to emphasize that his remarkable rise to the world stage was due to – not despite – his deep rural roots.

Along a few blocks of Plains, the motorcade passed by where the Carters ran the family peanut warehouse and the small house where her mother, a nurse, had delivered the future first lady in 1927. hearse passed the old railway depot. which served as the headquarters for Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign – a straightforward effort that depended on public funding, dwarfed by the billion-dollar U.S. presidential campaigns of the 21st century.

At the Carter farm, a few dozen National Park Service rangers stood in formation outside the house, which had no running water or electricity when Carter was a boy. The old farm bell rang 39 times to honor Carter’s place as the 39th president.

Next to the house remains the tennis court that Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr., built for the family — a nod to the mix of privilege and tough rural life that defined the upbringing of the future president. Carter worked the land throughout the Great Depression, but it was owned by the elder Carter, who employed nearby black farmers during the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Carter wrote and spoke extensively about these formative years and how the abject poverty and institutional racism he saw influenced his government policies and human rights work.

Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia lawmaker, remembered that legacy Saturday at the state Capitol. Smyre, who is black, said Carter’s rejection of racial segregation allowed blacks to wield power in Georgia.

“We rely on courageous people like Jimmy Carter,” Smyre said. “What he did shocked and shook the political terrain here in the state of Georgia. And we live better because of it.”

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Payne reported from Plains, Georgia.

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