Good morning! Mayor Karen Bass is under pressure as wildfires sweep L.A., Tesla's board is told to return its compensation, and what drove Jimmy Carter's fight for women's rights.
- Lasting legacy. Five presidents, two presidential candidates, and four first ladies gathered in Washington yesterday for the funeral of Jimmy Carter, the former president who died at 100 on Dec. 29. It was a rare symbol of presidential unity before Donald Trump takes office later this month, with Trump and Barack Obama seated next to each other and even seen laughing, with Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris all nearby.
The legacy of Carter, the one-term 39th president who served from 1977 to 1981, was reason enough to gather this complicated group. Carter is remembered for his humanitarian impact. The Democrat and Georgia peanut farmer eradicated Guinea worm disease, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to find peaceful solutions to conflicts, and worked to advance human rights.
Less trumpeted is his legacy for women's rights, which The 19th* examined. In 2015, he called the abuse of women and girls the "number one abuse of human rights on Earth." He authored a book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.
During his time in office, he signed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and championed the Equal Rights Amendment, extending the deadline for its ultimately unsuccessful passage. As The 19th* reports, he set records at the time by appointing four women to Cabinet-level positions and 41 women and 57 people of color to federal judgeships—including naming Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1980. That was more than all previous presidents had appointed combined. He named Patricia Roberts Harris as Housing and Urban Development secretary, making her the first Black woman to serve in the Cabinet. As Biden said in his eulogy: "Today, many think he was from a bygone era. But in reality, he saw well into the future."
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, started the permanent office of the first lady, which created the infrastructure that elevated the work of future first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, who did not attend yesterday's service due to a reported scheduling conflict.
Carter will be buried in Georgia next to Rosalynn, who died at 96 last year. They were married for 77 years—longer than any other presidential couple. Carter's grandson Jason Carter, who chairs the nonprofit Carter Center, said, "Rest assured that in these last weeks, he told us that he was ready to see [Rosalynn] again. But his life was also a broader love story about love for his fellow humans and about living out the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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