PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Jimmy Carter’s long public farewell began Saturday in Georgia, as the 39th U.S. president’s flag-draped casket rolled through his small hometown as he climbed the political ladder. On his way to Atlanta, he passed the farmhouse where he spent his childhood. After leaving the White House, it became the home of his decades-long humanitarian work.
The former president’s six-day state funeral began at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in the Americus, where current and former Secret Service agents who escorted the late president loaded his remains into a black hearse, which rolled from campus toward the Plains. I walked beside him. Mr. Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied their patriarch, and the plaintive sound of whistles filled the crisp air as pallbearers laid hands on the hearse for a final farewell.
In Plains, where Mr. Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924, and spent most of his life, mourners lined the main street, some carrying bouquets of flowers or wearing pins with the former president’s portrait. There were too. He passed away on December 29th at the age of 100.
“We want to pay our respects,” said Will Porter Shellbrock, 12, who was born more than 30 years after Mr. Carter left the White House in 1981. To achieve. ”
It was Porter Shelbrock’s idea to travel to the Plains from Gainesville, Fla., with her grandmother, Susan Cohn, 66. He admires Carter’s humanitarian work that built homes, worked for peace, and spoke about global warming before it was a climate crisis. Refers to everyday political discussions.
Willie Browner, 75, said Mr. Carter comes from a bygone era in American politics.
“This man was thinking about more than himself,” Browner said. Browner grew up in the town of Parrot, about 15 miles from Plains, before moving to Miami.
Browner said it “means a lot” that the president comes from a small Southern town like his, and worries that something like this is unlikely to happen again.
Indeed, Saturday’s procession will reflect Mr. Carter’s deep rural roots and remarkable rise to the world stage as a political leader, global champion of democracy and human rights, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. It was the purpose.
The convoy spanned several blocks in Plains, visiting the place where Carter and his late wife Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, ran a family peanut warehouse, and the small town where Carter’s mother, a nurse, gave birth to her first baby. It passed near my house. The hearse passed through an old train depot that served as a base for Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign. This activity was a bare-bones effort that relied on public funds, and was dwarfed by the $1 billion in the United States. Presidential elections in the 21st century.
Leaving downtown, the procession passed the house where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter died. The house is the same one-story home the couple built before their first Senate campaign in 1962, and their life there was interrupted by four years in the Georgia governor’s mansion and four years in the White House. It was only for a year.
The former president was then honored by the National Park Service in front of his family’s farm, which is now part of Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. Dozens of Rangers stand in formation in front of the house, which had no running water or electricity when Carter was a boy, and an old farm bell stands at 39, honoring Carter’s status as the 39th president. It was rang twice.
Next to the house is the tennis court that Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr., built for his family. This is a nod to the mix of privilege and harsh rural life that characterized the later president’s upbringing. Carter worked on his father’s farm throughout the Great Depression, on land owned by the older Carter, and during the era of Jim Crow segregation, the family was surrounded by black sharecroppers. Ta.
Carter discusses his formative years and how the dire poverty and systemic racism he witnessed influenced his government’s future policies and human rights work after leaving the White House. He has written and lectured extensively.
On Saturday afternoon, the motorcade headed to Atlanta, held a moment of silence in front of the Georgia State Capitol, and held a ceremony at the Carter Presidential Center.
Mr. Carter will lie peacefully there until Tuesday morning, when he will be transported to Washington and lie in state in court at the U.S. Capitol. His state funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral, before returning to the Plains for an invitation-only service at Maranatha Baptist Church.
He will be buried near his home next to Rosalynn Carter.
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Bill Barrow is based in Atlanta and has covered national politics, including multiple presidential campaigns, for The Associated Press since 2012.
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More from The Associated Press: https://apnews.com/hub/jimmy-carter
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