Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at the age of 100 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, according to the Carter Center, the nonprofit he and his wife Rosalynn Carter founded.
The longest-lived American president endured recent battles with health issues and treatment for cancer in 2015 before entering home hospice care in February 2023. His death follows the passing of Rosalynn, the former first lady and his wife of more than 77 years, on Nov. 19, 2023, at the age of 96 and shortly after she was diagnosed with dementia.
"Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it," Carter wrote in a heartfelt tribute to his wife after her death. "As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me."
Carter's grandson, Jason, said at the time that his grandfather's life was "coming to an end."
“(My grandfather) is doing OK,” he said during a speech honoring his grandmother at the Carter Center. “He has been in hospice, as you know, for almost a year and a half now, and 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, 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.”
Jason Carter added that Rosalynn's passing was "difficult" for his grandfather. But, he added, the "outpouring of love and support that we, as a family, received from people in this room and from the rest of the world was so remarkable and meaningful to us. And it really turned that whole process into a celebration.”
Carter was a peanut farmer, Navy officer and moderate Democrat who served as the 39th president from 1977 to 1981. He became a global humanitarian after leaving office, and "decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention," the Carter Center said last year. On Sunday, they announced his death in a statement on the social media platform X.
The previous winter, in a moment when Carter was at his sickest and his family feared for his life, the former president was said to have refused hospital care so he could remain by Rosalynn's side, historian Michael Beschloss told MSNBC following her passing.
"I am told that President Carter said, 'No, I want to get home, and be in bed with Rosalynn, and just sit holding hands, and that's the way I'd like to close my life,'" Beschloss said, emphasizing the love the two shared and how their close partnership played a role in Carter's presidency.
Carter was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946, and they had four children — Jack, James III "Chip", Donnel and Amy — as well as 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. The Carters celebrated their 77th anniversary on July 7, 2023 and held the record for the longest-wed presidential couple, overtaking the late President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara.
After returning home from military service in 1953, Carter rose as an activist in the Democratic Party, opposing segregation and supporting the growing civil rights movement.
Carter served as the lesser-known Georgia governor and former state senator who defeated then-President Gerald Ford in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. He connected with many Americans who felt betrayed by former President Richard Nixon and the devastating effects of the war in Southeast Asia.
"If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don't vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president," Carter said frequently during his campaign for president.
On his second day as president, Carter famously pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. Throughout the course of his presidency, Carter would have to govern amid Cold War pressures, racial tensions and unpredictable oil markets.
Carter was well known for his work in foreign policy, including brokering the Camp David Accords, a 1978 framework for peace signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that led to the March 1979 treaty between the nations. He also restored the Panama Canal back to Panama and signed the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
He designated millions of acres of land in Alaska as national parks and wildlife reserves. He also appointed a then-record number of women and Americans of color to federal posts and was best known for his promotion of civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the country's second-highest court.
Carter was one of the last Democratic presidents to gain widespread support from the South before the rise of his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan. Carter lost much of his base after the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran culminated in a failed rescue mission in April 1980, resulting in the deaths of eight Americans.
He served one term before losing to Reagan in 1980. In the years after his loss, Carter dealt with a lack of trust from his Democratic colleagues and was treated as a punchline amongst Republicans. However, decades later, he reflected on his presidency with a sense of pride, telling the Associated Press that he did "protect our nation's security and interests peacefully" and "enhance human rights here and abroad."
"I'm perfectly at ease with whatever comes," he said in 2015. "I've had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence."
The loss of a second term ultimately brought about Carter's decades of work in public health and human rights with the Carter Center, whose motto is "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope."
The Carters opened the center in 1982 and their work was recognized in 2002 with the Nobel Peace Prize. While the former president spent most of his life in Plains, he traveled the world in his 80s and early 90s, including annual trips with Habitat for Humanity to build homes. Last year, the Carter Center celebrated 40 years of promoting democracy worldwide, including monitoring at least 113 elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia since 1989.
The center also worked alongside the World Health Organization to ensure the near-eradication of the tropical disease known as Guinea worm.
The former president was concerned with the health of those who did not have access to safe drinking water and were contracting the disease.
"I would like to see Guinea worm completely eradicated before I die," he said at a news conference in 2015. "I'd like for the last Guinea worm to die before I do."
Due to the Carter Center's work, the end of the destructive parasite is near.
"It's an audacious and mind-boggling idea," Emily Staub, the press liaison to health programs for the Carter Center told CNN later. "A whole bunch of people with the Carter Center decided that they were going to eradicate a disease that has no vaccine, no immunity, no medication. It's thousands of years old and has a one-year incubation. The odds are totally stacked against you. And the people that suffer from it speak thousands of different languages, and some have never had outsiders interact with them.
"President Carter just jumped in with two feet," she said.
Carter in 2006 delivered the eulogy at the funeral of his close friend Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and praised her for "breaking down the racial barriers that had separated us one from another for almost two centuries."
After the news broke that Carter was entering hospice care, Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta and Martin, said she was joining the nation in praying for him.
"Former President Carter's love and compassion for all people set him apart as a leader, servant, and simply a great man striving to achieve a Beloved Community," she wrote. "We are praying that you feel God's grace, mercy, and love as well as the love of your family, The King Center, and the world that you have so graciously served."
We are praying that you feel God's grace, mercy, and love as well as the love of your family, The King Center, and the world that you have so graciously served. (3/3)
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) February 19, 2023
"I've had the good fortune to meet many presidents, kings, Nobel Peace Prize winners and truly impressive people. Few are as truly good as Jimmy Carter, who at age 98 is now entering hospice," wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff. "He leaves this planet so much better than he found it. A great, great, great man."
I've had the good fortune to meet many presidents, kings, Nobel Peace Prize winners and truly impressive people. Few are as truly good as Jimmy Carter, who at age 98 is now entering hospice. He leaves this planet so much better than he found it. A great, great, great man. https://t.co/x2SLzicmFj
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) February 18, 2023
Kai Bird, the former president's biographer, wrote in a guest essay for The Times that Carter "was not what you think."
"Jimmy Carter was probably the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century," Bird wrote. "A Southern liberal, he knew racism was the nation's original sin. He was a progressive on the issue of race, declaring in his first address as Georgia's governor, in 1971, that 'the time for racial discrimination is over,' to the extreme discomfort of many Americans, including a good number of his fellow Southerners."
Bird also reflected on Carter's post-presidential life, writing, "Some of his controversial decisions, at home and abroad, were just as consequential. He took Egypt off the battlefield for Israel, but he always insisted that Israel was also obligated to suspend building new settlements in the West Bank and allow the Palestinians a measure of self-rule."
After the release of his 2006 New York Times bestselling book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Carter gave a radio interview in which he described apartheid to be the "forced separation of two peoples in the same territory with one of the groups dominating or controlling the other," and claimed that Israel's policies resulted in apartheid worse than South Africa's.
"When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa," Carter said.
While the book and his subsequent interviews generated controversy, including some accusing him of antisemitism, Carter continued to stand up for his beliefs in racial equality. "The hope is that my book will at least stimulate a debate, which has not existed in this country. There's never been any debate on this issue, of any significance," he said.
"He was not afraid to warn everyone that Israel was taking a wrong turn on the road to apartheid," Bird wrote. "In or out of the White House, Mr. Carter devoted his life to solving problems, like an engineer, by paying attention to the minutiae of a complicated world."
The Carter Center carried on its founder's voracious criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the wake of Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza, citing his Nobel Peace Prize speech in their call for a ceasefire in the city, the return of the hostages seized during Hamas' deadly attack and the reinstatement of services and resources to the besieged territory.
"In his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said, 'We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,'" the center wrote in a statement. "His words resonate with us today more than ever as the Israel-Hamas conflict enters a new and even more dangerous phase."
"Carter is widely considered a better man than he was a president," The Independent noted in 2009 — a sentiment widely shared by many Americans.
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman thanked Carter for his "decades of leadership, service, & wisdom" and wrote, "the future is brighter because of your work."
President Carter's dedication to making the world a better place has had a lasting impact on countless lives through the @CarterCenter. Thank you Pres. Carter for your decades of leadership, service, & wisdom—the future is brighter because of your work https://t.co/MF0M2w4WNC
— Mark Suzman (@MSuzman) February 22, 2023
Reverend William J. Barber II reflected on Carter's legacy through a theological lens.
"President Jimmy Carter's leadership & moral commitment were so strong that some tried to undermine his legacy by calling him weak," he wrote on Twitter. "The so-called religious right said they wanted a Christian President, but Carter was one, & they stood against him — exposing their hypocrisy. Before Obama, Jimmy Carter broke through the Southern strategy."
"Carter walked in the halls of power & never lost his humanity. He never let power and money change him," he added. "As he transitions to life evermore, I pray we forever learn from the model of leadership he showed us as President &, more importantly, as a person."
Carter walked in the halls of power & never lost his humanity. He never let power and money change him. As he transitions to life evermore, I pray we forever learn from the model of leadership he showed us as President &, more importantly, as a person.
— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) February 22, 2023
After Carter entered hospice care, former President Bill Clinton tweeted a picture of him and Carter with the caption, "On this Presidents' Day I'm thinking of President Jimmy Carter."
On this Presidents’ Day I’m thinking of President Jimmy Carter. pic.twitter.com/fpE2RUi0Qr
— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) February 20, 2023
Residents of Plains, Georgia remember Carter fondly for his "small-town boy" demeanor. He was known to greet everyone he came in contact with, including in one instance every passenger on a commercial flight he took.
"President Carter's very unique," Millard Simmons, a lifelong resident of Plains, told the Augusta Chronicle. "President Carter could have lived anywhere in the world he wanted to live, but he wanted to come back to a place that I think he loves; I know he loves."
Local pastor Tony Lowden spent time with the former president in his remaining days and told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter has "given us so much."
Carter was an integral figure in the local community and was committed to diversity and inclusion within the church. After the Southern Baptist Union announced in 2000 that they would no longer allow women to become pastors, the former president renounced his membership.
"I'm familiar with the verses they have quoted about wives being subjugated to their husbands," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2000. "In my opinion, this is a distortion of the meaning of Scripture. I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God. I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church."
Lowden said he looked to Carter for guidance in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in 2020. "He gave me better advice than anyone could have," Lowden told the outlet. "He told me not to hold back with my advice, even if it's tough. Tell the truth. You're not trying to win an election — you're trying to save America."
The two had a rule each time they saw each other for prayer sessions or private conversations: Never say goodbye.
Instead, Lowden told Carter three things: I love you, I'll see you again — and there's nothing you can do about it.
