Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and one-term US president who dedicated his time after the White House to widespread humanitarian work, died on Sunday at age 100.
Carter, who became the oldest living ex-president after the death of George H.W. Bush in November 2018, also had the longest post-presidency in American history, having left the White House in January 1981.
The Democrat and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner died peacefully and surrounded by family at the ranch home he built decades earlier with his wife in Plains, Georgia, according to the former president’s charity The Carter Center.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” the ex-president’s son Chip Carter said in a statement. “My brothers, sister and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honouring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”
In February 2023, The Carter Center said that the former president would start hospice care at home after undergoing a “series of short hospital stays.” Former first lady Rosalynn Carter entered hospice care herself in November of that year after being diagnosed with dementia, according to the centre. She died two days later, putting the country in a state of mourning. Despite still being in hospice, Jimmy Carter attended the funeral of his wife of 77 years.
On May 14, 2024, Carter’s grandson Jason, the chair of The Carter Center, said the former president was nearing the end of his life.
“He really is, I think, coming to the end that, as I’ve said before, there’s a part of this faith journey that is so important to him,” he said. “And there’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end. And I think he has been there in that space.”
Over the next week, Carter is expected to receive a state funeral in Washington, DC, as well as public observances in Atlanta and a private burial in his small town of Plains.
While details have not yet been formally announced, plans that The New York Times says have long been in the works include having the former president lie in repose at The Carter Center before being flown to lie in state at the US Capitol for a day and a half before the funeral at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden is expected to speak at the funeral.
The Carters made their last public appearance together in September 2023, when they were spotted riding in a black SUV at the Plains Peanut Festival in Plains, Georgia, seven months after the former president entered hospice care.
Carter had few public appearances over the last years of his life. He and his wife skipped Biden’s presidential inauguration in January 2021, their first time missing the ceremonies since Carter was sworn in as the 39th president in 1977.
But Carter continued to speak out about humanitarian and political issues.
In January 2021, Carter joined with other former living presidents to condemn the violent insurrection at the US Capitol, calling it a “national tragedy” and “not who we are as a nation.” The following year, Carter penned an op-ed for The New York Times expressing concern about US democracy and called on leaders and candidates to “uphold the ideals of freedom and adhere to high standards of conduct.”
He spoke out in February 2022 against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing the “unjust assault” threatened “security in Europe and the entire world.”
After news of his death, the Bidens released a statement calling Carter “an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian.”
“With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us,” they said. “He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”
Carter experienced several health setbacks in his later years. He was admitted to the hospital in November 2019 for a procedure to relieve pressure on his brain caused by several falls. He continued to face health issues that year, including a broken hip, pelvic fracture and a urinary tract infection.
In August 2015, Carter revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. He received radiation treatment for melanoma and was declared cancer-free that December, announcing four months later that he no longer needed to receive treatment.
The bout with cancer forced Carter to come to terms with mortality. In a 2019 address to a church in his hometown, he said he was “completely at ease” with death.
“I assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly,” Carter told the congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. “I obviously prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.”
He was born James Earl Carter Jr. on October 1924 to humble beginnings in Georgia, the first of his parents’ four children. He attended the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, serving seven years in the Navy. Carter then returned to Georgia to operate a peanut farm before eventually becoming a state senator and governor.
The Democrat kicked off his presidential run in December 1974, choosing Walter Mondale as his running mate. In November 1976, he defeated Republican Gerald Ford, who had become president two years earlier when Richard Nixon resigned.
During his four years in the White House, Carter dealt with a national energy crisis, expanded the national park system and installed solar panels on the White House.
“He will be remembered as more than just a champion for the environmental movement, a values-driven public servant who cherished and protected our nation’s wild places despite being pressured otherwise,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a statement.
Both in and out of the White House, Carter took the position of unequivocally supporting equal rights — proclaiming at his 1971 inauguration as Georgia’s governor, “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.”
Carter signed the bill that helped create the US Department of Education while launching the Black College Initiative to boost federal support for HBCUs. He signed landmark civil rights legislation like the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, and appointed more women and people of colour to the federal judiciary than all previous presidents combined, according to The Leadership Conference.
Carter made human rights central to his foreign policy. Perhaps his greatest presidential achievement, the Camp David Accords, settled hostilities between Egypt and Israel and established diplomatic relations. But it failed to live up to his hopes for serious negotiations toward Palestinian statehood.
His administration was dogged by other foreign policy issues, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis. Carter was deeply unpopular by the time Republican Ronald Reagan defeated him in the 1980 election and he left office with a 34% approval rating, according to Gallup.
“Even when it made him unpopular, he led with his values — and with his fierce conviction that America could always be better, especially for those who have been left out and left behind for too long,” Southern Poverty Law Center President Margaret Huang said on Sunday.
After the presidency, Carter became a champion for international human rights while remaining a constant presence in his small farm town. He monitored elections across the globe and devoted time to building houses for the charity Habitat for Humanity. His efforts through The Carter Center nearly eliminated Guinea worm disease, an infection that has plagued Africa for centuries. He became a self-styled international diplomat, sometimes working unofficially.
“Jimmy Carter’s character and commitment, just like his crops, were fruits of all-American soil,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Sunday. “After every season when life led him to lofty service far from home, he came back home again, determined to plow his unique experiences and influence into helping others.”
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development” through The Carter Center.
“He remains such a controversial figure,” Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University and a Carter biographer, told The Atlantic in 2012. “But like it or not, he re-invented the post-presidency.”
Carter wrote books and spoke his mind on contemporary political issues, refusing to shy away from critiquing those who have also occupied the White House. In 2003, he condemned the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, and in 2012 went after the Obama administration for using drones to bomb the Middle East and for failing to close Guantanamo Bay prison.
“The 39th president should be remembered both for his willingness to speak frankly about America’s global role today, as well as for his conviction that the country should strive to act as a force for good in the world,” said Ruth Lawlor, a Cornell University assistant professor and historian of American foreign relations.
In July 2015, Carter said the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that allowed unlimited campaign donations had turned America into an “oligarchy.”
“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system,” Carter said. “Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president.”
He also spoke out against then-President Donald Trump, telling The Washington Post in August 2018 he thought Trump was “a disaster” after previously arguing that the media were too harsh and saying he had prayed for him.
Carter “did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” Trump, set to become president again, posted Sunday on Truth Social. “For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Carter wed Rosalynn in 1946, a marriage that became the longest of any other couple who lived in the White House. The couple celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary in 2021 with a private reception attended by former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, country artists Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, and more.
Rosalynn was heavily involved in the humanitarian work her husband did after leaving the White House, and advocates for several causes on her own, including mental health and caregiving. The former president often expressed how strong their partnership was, and how important she was to his success.
Carter, a Baptist, was deeply religious, and told The Atlantic in July 2015 he believed he’d led “several hundred” people to Christ through one-on-one interaction. He taught Sunday school lessons every other week at Maranatha Baptist Church for decades after he left the White House.
He told HuffPost Live in 2015 that he approved of same-sex marriage, saying he believed Jesus would as well.
“I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else,” he said.
While speaking at The Carter Center in 2019, Carter described his aspirations for the Center’s future initiatives, he said he hoped it would speak out against armed conflicts and “wars by the United States.”
“I just want to keep the whole world at peace,” Carter said.
The end of Carter’s life appeared to be one of unexpected resilience — from surviving cancer and multiple falls, to spending nearly two years in hospice care, to outliving his partner in marriage and reaching 100 years. He is survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Ryan Grenoble, Shruti Rajkumar and Carla H. Russo contributed reporting.