Jimmy Carter's state funeral begins in rural Georgia
Jimmy Carter 's extended public farewell has begun in Georgia, with the 39th US president's flag-draped casket tracing his long arc from the Depression-era South and family farm to the pinnacle of political power and decades as a global humanitarian.
A six-day state funeral is being held for Carter who died on December 29 at the age of 100, as the longest-lived US president.
"He was an amazing man. He was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman," son James Earl "Chip" Carter III, told mourners at The Carter Center referring to his father and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023. "The two of them together changed the world. And it was an amazing thing to watch so close."
Carter's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied their patriarch as his hearse rode first through his hometown of Plains. The procession stopped at the farm where the future president toiled alongside the Black sharecroppers who worked for his father. The motorcade continued to Atlanta, stopping in front of the Georgia Capitol where Carter served as a state senator and reformist governor.
Finally, he arrived for his last visit to the Carter Presidential Center, which houses his presidential library and The Carter Center where he based his post-White House advocacy for public health, democracy and human rights, setting a new standard for what former presidents can accomplish after they yield power.
Pallbearers on Saturday came from the Secret Service that protected the Carters for almost a half-century and a military honour guard for the only US Naval Academy graduate to reach the Oval Office.
Jimmy Carter will lie in repose at the Carter Presidential Center until 6 am Tuesday, with the public able to pay respects around the clock.
National rites will continue in Washington and conclude Thursday with a funeral at 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 state Senate campaign in 1962.
In Plains, mourners lined the main street, some holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins bearing images of the former president and his signature smile.
The hearse passed Carter's 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — a barebones effort that depended on public financing, dwarfed by the billion-dollar US presidential campaigns of the 21st century.
At the Carter farm, a few dozen National Park Service rangers stood in formation in front of the home, which did not have running water or electricity when Carter was a boy.
Carter worked the land throughout the Great Depression, but it was owned by the elder Carter, who employed the surrounding Black tenant farmers during the era of Jim Crow segregation.
Carter wrote and spoke extensively on those formative years and how the abject poverty and institutional racism he saw influenced his policies in government and human rights work.
Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia legislator, remembered that legacy on Saturday at the state Capitol. Smyre, who is Black, said Carter's repudiation of racial segregation allowed Black people to wield power in Georgia.
"We stand on the shoulder of courageous people like Jimmy Carter," Smyre said. "What he did shocked and shook the political ground here in the state of Georgia. And we live better because of that."
