James Earl (“Jimmy”) Carter Jr., 39th President of the United States, has died at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Back in February of 2023, as we reported, The Carter Center announced that the former president had entered hospice care at home. Carter successfully battled brain cancer in 2015. He sustained a series of falls in 2019 that ultimately required surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding from the falls. The statement from The Carter Center indicated the decision to receive hospice care at home followed “a series of short hospital stays.”
In August of 2023, Carter’s grandson, Josh, told People, “It’s clear we’re in the final chapter,” noting that despite his grandparents’ decline, they remained together at home, “still holding hands.”
Carter’s beloved wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, passed away in November of 2023. Nevertheless, Carter lived to celebrate his 100th birthday on October 1 of this year and, reportedly, to cast his vote in the November presidential election.
The Carters are survived by their sons Jack, James III, and Donnel, daughter Amy, and multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
At 100, Carter was the longest-lived U.S. President, surpassing George H.W. Bush, who was 94 at the time of his death in 2018. Carter, who served as President from 1977 to 1981, also boasts the longest retirement of a U.S. President, eclipsing Herbert Hoover’s 31 years in 2012. Carter also holds the distinction of being the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.
Jimmy Carter was the eldest of four children born to Bessie Lillian and James Earl Carter Sr. He grew up in Plains, graduating from Plains High School in 1941. As a teenager, Carter grew, packaged, and sold peanuts from an acre of farmland given to him by his father. Carter began college at Georgia Southwestern College in 1941, transferring the following year to the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned admission to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1943, graduating in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He and Rosalynn were married shortly thereafter.
Carter’s stint in the Navy included work with the nuclear submarine program. His plan to serve aboard the USS Seawolf was cut short in 1953 after his father died of pancreatic cancer, and Carter obtained a release from active duty so that he could run the family’s peanut farm and farm supply business. Carter remained in the Navy Reserve until 1961, leaving the service as a Lieutenant.
Carter, a Democrat, served in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967 and then as Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975, having announced his candidacy for president in December 1974. Fresh on the heels of the Watergate scandal and Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon, Carter successfully positioned himself as an outsider and, with Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate, narrowly defeated Ford on November 2, 1976.
Carter’s presidency, unfortunately, is regarded by many as one marred by economic malaise, an energy crisis, and foreign policy missteps, though he is credited for helping bring about the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. The Iran hostage crisis loomed large in the final year of his presidency and undoubtedly played a role in his landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
Following his defeat, Carter focused on diplomacy, including efforts in the Middle East and assisting President Bill Clinton with a North Korean peace mission. His 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” was highly critical of Israel’s policies regarding the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Notably, Carter, along with Rosalynn, spent considerable time volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. A committed Christian, Carter continued to teach Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains well into his nineties.
