WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Jimmy Carter was celebrated Thursday for his personal humility and public service before, during and after his presidency in a funeral at Washington National Cathedral featuring the kind of pageantry the 39th U.S. president<\/a> typically eschewed. It was followed by an intimate hometown funeral near where he was born a century ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of Carter\u2019s living successors attended in Washington, with President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse his 1976 run for the White House, eulogizing his longtime friend. Biden and others took turns in the morning praising Carter\u2019s record \u2014 which many historians have appraised more favorably since he lost his bid for a second term in 1980 \u2014 and extolling his character. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The dual ceremonies in Washington and Plains, Georgia, provided a moment of national comity in a notably partisan era and offered a striking portrait of a president who was once judged a political failure, only for his life ultimately to be recognized as having lasting national and global impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe built houses for people who needed homes,\u201d said Joshua Carter, a grandson who recalled how Carter regularly taught Sunday school in Plains after leaving the White House. \u201cHe eliminated diseases in forgotten places. He waged peace anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance. He loved people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Carter and Biden’s long friendship will be on display one last time with a eulogy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Jimmy Carter, 39th US president, has died at 100<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>President-elect Donald Trump visits Jimmy Carter’s casket at Capitol<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason Carter, another grandson, wryly noted his grandparents\u2019 frugality, such as washing and reusing Ziploc bags, and his grandfather\u2019s struggles with his cellphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were small-town people who never forgot who they were and where they were from, no matter what happened in their lives,\u201d said Jason, who chairs the Carter Center, a global humanitarian operation founded by Jimmy and his late wife, Rosalynn Carter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the national service, former President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, who have mocked each other for years going back to Trump fanning conspiracy theories about Obama\u2019s citizenship, sat next to each other and talked for several minutes, even sharing a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Trump went to his seat, he shook hands with Mike Pence in a rare interaction with his former vice president. The two split over Pence\u2019s refusal to help Trump overturn his election defeat to Biden four years ago. Karen Pence, the former second lady, did not rise from her chair when her husband did so to greet Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, entered afterward and was not seen interacting with him. Former first lady Michelle Obama did not attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All politics were not left outside the cathedral, though. Biden, who leaves office in 11 days, repeated several times that \u201ccharacter\u201d was Carter\u2019s chief attribute. Biden said Carter taught him that \u201ceveryone should be treated with dignity and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor,\u201d Biden said, also noting the importance of standing up to \u201cabuse in power.\u201d Those comments echoed Biden\u2019s typical criticisms of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Plains, Carter\u2019s personal pastor, Tony Lowden, touched on the political as well, saying Carter was \u201cstill teaching us a lesson\u201d with the timing of his death as a new Congress begins its work and Trump prepares for a second administration. Lowden, who did not name Trump or others, urged the nation to follow Carter\u2019s example: \u201cnot self, but country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t let his legacy die. Don\u2019t let this nation die,\u201d Lowden said. \u201cLet faith and hope be our guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carter died Dec. 29<\/a> at age 100, living so long that two of Thursday\u2019s eulogies were written by people who died before him \u2014 his vice president, Walter Mondale, and his presidential predecessor, Gerald Ford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy fate of a brief season, Jimmy Carter and I were rivals,\u201d Ford said in his eulogy, which was read by his son Steven. \u201cBut for the many wonderful years that followed, friendship bonded us as no two presidents since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carter defeated Ford in 1976, but the presidents and their wives became close friends, and Carter eulogized Ford at his own funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Days of formal ceremonies and remembrances from political leaders, business titans and rank-and-file citizens have honored Carter for his decency and using a prodigious work ethic to do more than obtain political power<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proceedings began Thursday morning as military service members carried Carter\u2019s flag-draped casket down the east steps of the U.S. Capitol, where the former president had been lying in state since Tuesday. There was also a 21-gun salute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the cathedral, the Armed Forces Chorus sang the hymn \u201cBe Still My Soul\u201d before Carter\u2019s casket was brought inside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mourners also heard from 92-year-old Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor, congressman and U.N. ambassador during the Carter administration. Carter outlived much of his Cabinet and inner circle but remained especially close to Young \u2014 a friendship that brought together a white Georgian and Black Georgian who grew up in the era of Jim Crow segregation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJimmy Carter was a blessing that helped create a great United States of America,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHail to the Chief\u201d was performed by military bands multiple times as Carter\u2019s casket arrived and departed various points. Carter once tried to stop the traditional standard from being played for him when he was president, seeing it as an unnecessary flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday concluded six days of national rites<\/a> that began in Plains, where Carter, a former Naval officer, engineer and peanut farmer, was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died after 22 months in hospice care<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the morning service, Carter\u2019s remains, his four children and extended family returned to Georgia on a Boeing 747 that serves as Air Force One when the sitting president is aboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An outspoken Baptist<\/a> who campaigned as a born-again Christian, Carter received his second service at Maranatha Baptist Church, the small edifice where he taught Sunday school for decades. His casket sat beneath a wooden cross he fashioned in his own woodshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following a final ride through his hometown, past the old train depot that served as his 1976 campaign headquarters, Carter was interred on family land in a plot next to Rosalynn, who died in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carter, who won the presidency promising good government and honest talk for an electorate disillusioned by the Vietnam War and Watergate, signed significant legislation and negotiated a landmark peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. But he also presided over inflation, rising interest rates and international crises \u2014 most notably the Iran hostage situation, in which Americans were held in Tehran for more than a year. Carter lost in a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former White House aide Stu Eizenstat used his eulogy to reframe the Carter presidency as more successful than voters appreciated at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted that Carter deregulated U.S. transportation industries, streamlined energy research and created the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He emphasized that Carter\u2019s administration secured the release of the hostages in Iran, though they were not freed until after Reagan took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore,\u201d Eizenstat said. \u201cBut he belongs in the foothills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associated Press writers Charlotte Kramon in Plains, Georgia; and Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n BILL BARROW<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill Barrow covers U.S. politics. He is based in Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>CHRIS MEGERIAN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY\u00a0\u00a0BILL BARROW\u00a0AND\u00a0CHRIS MEGERIAN, January 9, 2025 Follow live updates on former President Jimmy Carter\u2019s final farewell. WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Jimmy Carter was celebrated Thursday for his personal humility and public service before, during and after his presidency in a funeral at Washington National Cathedral featuring the kind of pageantry the 39th U.S. president typically eschewed. It was followed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15991,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990\/revisions\/15991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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