Thursday is a national day of mourning in the United States for the passing of former President Jimmy Carter, with the government shut down as top officials gathered at the majestic Washington National Cathedral for a state funeral for the country’s 39th president.
Carter, who died last week at 100 as the oldest former president, often disdained the political formalities of Washington governance, but all five of his living presidential successors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — attended the funeral, with Biden delivering a eulogy.
In photos: State funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at National Cathedral
Biden called Carter a devout Christian, “a good and faithful servant of God and the American people.” Biden said Carter led “a good life of purpose and meaning, of character.”
“To make every minute of our life count,” Biden said of Carter, “that is the definition of a good life.”
Mourners from the public have paid their final respects as Carter, in a flag-draped casket, has lain in state at the U.S. Capitol since Tuesday. Only about 50 Americans have been recognized with the honor of lying in state there since 1852.
After the funeral, Carter’s remains were flown back to his southern home state of Georgia, where he will be interred in a family plot next to Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, who died in late 2023.
The tributes to Carter have lasted a week, with many noting how he rose to power from humble beginnings as a peanut farmer to preside in the White House from 1977 to 1981. During that tumultuous time, the U.S. was looking to recover from the Watergate political scandal and its military defeat in the Vietnam War.
Carter, a Democrat, negotiated the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and lost his 1980 reelection bid to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide defeat, but later emerged in a post-presidential life as a celebrated humanitarian. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his long efforts to negotiate peaceful settlements to world conflicts.
In declaring the national day of mourning, Biden called Carter “a man of character, courage and compassion.”
Aside from Biden, Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, and Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime friend and White House domestic adviser to Carter, delivered eulogies.
The former president defeated Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election, but they became fast friends. A eulogy by Ford and one by Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, written before their own deaths, were read by their sons, Steven Ford and Ted Mondale.
In photos: Mourners pay respects to Jimmy Carter
President Ford, who died in 2006, called his relationship with Carter “one of my deepest and most enduring friendships,” proving “there is indeed life after the White House.”
Andrew Young, the civil rights leader who served as Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations, delivered another tribute to Carter. Pop artists Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Public mourners paid tribute to Carter after viewing his casket at the Capitol. David Smith, a professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, said the former president obviously impacted his career. He told VOA that he came to the Capitol to honor the man but also to honor Carter’s causes.
“He had such an impact on so many people,” he said. “His work on advancing minorities, appointments of women to the judiciary, protecting our environment, advocating for human rights — all those things are very important things to me.”
In the Capitol rotunda, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in a service late Tuesday, described Carter as: “Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor of Georgia. And president of the United States. Sunday school teacher. Nobel Prize winner. Advocate for peace and human rights. And first and foremost, a faithful servant of his creator and his fellow man."
Vice President Kamala Harris, who on Monday in the Capitol certified Trump’s victory over her in the November election, extolled Carter’s policies.
"He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy,” she said Tuesday. “He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection, and more than doubled the size of America's national parks."
Carter died Dec. 29 after nearly two years in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. Since then, his final journey has taken his remains over the skinny roads of his humble hometown, down the boulevards of Atlanta, the state capital, and through the skies to snowy Washington, for the state funeral.
At the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers told VOA what Carter meant to them.
Representative Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, said Carter was “a real moral person.” “He taught Sunday school — I did, too!” she said, smiling. “But I think [it’s] the fact that he cared about all people. He was a people’s president.”
Representative Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican, told VOA that while he did not align with Carter politically, “President Carter was a good man. President Carter was a man who served his country. He loved America. I didn’t agree with all of his policies, but you couldn’t [dis]agree with his patriotism, you couldn’t disagree. He just loved his country.”
In late December, after receiving news of Carter’s death, Biden said, “We may never see his like again. You know we can all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter.”
Paris Huang, Mykhailo Komadovsky and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
