The funeral of President Jimmy Carter has come to a close.
The remains of the 39th president, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, will now be taken to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where a private ceremony will be held. There, the late president will be buried alongside Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years.
All five living presidents — Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton — were in attendance. Obama and Trump even had a lengthy chat and shared a laugh.
Biden, a friend of Carter’s, delivered a eulogy at the service at the Washington National Cathedral.
“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me, and through his life, taught me strength of character is more than title or the power we hold,” Biden said. “To young people, to anyone in search of meaning and purpose: study the power of Jimmy Carter’s example. I miss him, but I take solace in knowing that he and his beloved Rosalynn are reunited again.”
Thursday’s funeral marked the final tribute to the longest-living president as the six-day proceedings come to an end. Funeral services and ceremonies have taken place at the U.S. Capitol, the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, and in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Key Points
- Watch live: Former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral takes place at Washington National Cathedral
- What is closed on January 9? What to know about national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter
- Here's the schedule for the final day of funeral rites for President Jimmy Carter
- Who are Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s children?
- Why isn’t Michelle Obama at the ceremony?
- Who performed at Jimmy Carter’s funeral?
In pictures: Inside Jimmy Carter’s state funeral
Tuesday 7 January 2025 22:47
Mike Bedigan
Carter will lie in state at the US Capitol until Thursday, Biden to deliver euology
Tuesday 7 January 2025 22:54
Graig Graziosi
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 aged 100, will lie in state at the US Capitol until Thursday.
On Thursday morning, former heads of state and dignitaries will attend a funeral for Carter at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
President Joe Biden will deliver a euology during that service.
America – and Donald Trump – have much to learn from the life and service of Jimmy Carter
Tuesday 7 January 2025 23:00
Editorial
As the tributes poured in from the United States and around the world, it was hard not to observe that even in death there can be good and bad timing – and Jimmy Carter’s was perfect.
He had reached the age of 100, to become the longest-lived US president ever. His state funeral will take place, appropriately, under a Democratic administration, and could well mark the last public appearance of Joe Biden as president before the inauguration of his successor.
Most of all, with just three weeks remaining before Donald Trump enters the White House for the second time, the passing of Jimmy Carter has provided the ideal pretext for Trump’s detractors to hurl yet more disapproving stones at the man they love to hate.
Read more:
Jimmy Carter is back in Washington, where he remained an outsider
Tuesday 7 January 2025 23:20
Graig Graziosi
Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the nation’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returned to Washington for three days of state funeral rites starting Tuesday.
Carter’s remains, which had been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, left the Atlanta campus Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 departed Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A motorcade carried the casket into Washington for a final journey to the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects.
In Georgia, eight military pallbearers held Carter’s casket as canons fired on the tarmac nearby. They carried it to a vehicle that lifted it to the passenger compartment of the aircraft, the iconic blue and white Boeing 747 variant that is known as Air Force One when the sitting president is on board. Carter never traveled as president on the jet, which first flew as Air Force One in 1990 with President George H.W. Bush.
READ MORE:
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter left behind enduring nonprofits as part of their legacy of giving back
Tuesday 7 January 2025 23:40
Graig Graziosi
President Jimmy Carter ‘s legacy of giving back endures in several nonprofits he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, supported for the almost 50 years after they left the White House.
In Los Angeles on Monday, members of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles signed wooden two-by-fours that will be used in a new house as a tribute to the former president, who died at age 100 on Dec. 29. In Houston, they are planning to let members of the community sign a door and wall in a new house to remember the thousands of homes the Carters helped build. They will do the same in Tallahassee, Florida, and numerous other communities, in preparation for Carter’s state funeral on Jan. 9.
The tributes to his dedication to providing affordable housing show how the Carters’ work will continue.
READ MORE:
Jimmy Carter made eradicating Guinea worm disease a top mission
Wednesday 8 January 2025 00:00
Russ Bynum, Sam Mednick
Noble Prize-winning peacemaker Jimmy Carter spent nearly four decades waging war to eliminate an ancient parasite plaguing the world’s poorest people.
Rarely fatal but searingly painful and debilitating, Guinea worm disease infects people who drink water tainted with larvae that grow inside the body into worms as much as 3-feet-long. The noodle-thin parasites then burrow their way out, breaking through the skin in burning blisters.
Carter made eradicating Guinea worm a top mission of The Carter Center, the nonprofit he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, founded after leaving the White House. The former president rallied public health experts, billionaire donors, African heads of state and thousands of volunteer villagers to work toward eliminating a human disease for only the second time in history.
Read more:
Despite Trump’s protests, flags will be flown at half-staff on Inauguration Day to remember Jimmy Carter
Wednesday 8 January 2025 00:59
Graig Graziosi
As former President Jimmy Carter lies in state at the US Capitol, flags at US federal buildings around the world have been lowered to half staff, and will remain that way until January 28.
That means that American flags will be at half-staff — a sign of national mourning — when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20.
Despite Trump’s complaints that “nobody wants to see this” and that “no American can be happy about it,” the flag lowering has nothing to do with him.
When a president dies, US law requires that flags at federal buildings be flown at half-staff for 30 days. Because Carter died on December 29, that means the mourning period will occur in tandem with Trump’s inauguration.
Thus far, there is no reason to think that is going to change before January 20.
VIDEO: Jimmy Carter, former US president, dies aged 100
Wednesday 8 January 2025 01:00
Gustaf Kilander
End of coverage
Wednesday 8 January 2025 01:47
Graig Graziosi
This concludes our coverage of former President Jimmy Carter’s memorial service in Washington, DC.
Thank you for reading The Independent. Be sure to check back for further developments on this and other stories.
Jimmy Carter brokered peace in the Middle East – then triggered his greatest failure
Wednesday 8 January 2025 02:00
Mary Dejevsky
For all the praise that has been lavished on Jimmy Carter, he was a one-term president and his four years at the White House were for the most part a failure – albeit outweighed many times over by the charitable endeavours of his retirement.
The Carter administration did, however, notch up one diplomatic success, which might have gained more recognition without what happened next. The success came with the Camp David accords that were signed in September 1978; that is a third of the way through his term, and constituted a diplomatic breakthrough of the first order.
They afforded Israel more security than it had arguably enjoyed since its creation in 1948 and they brought peace, for a while, to the Middle East. It is hard to recall now, but the main conflict before then had pitted Israel against the whole of the Arab world, with Egypt in the vanguard as the strongest military power.
Read more:
How American presidents have planned their own funerals
Wednesday 8 January 2025 03:00
Chris Megerian
Jimmy Carter‘s memorial journey will end at his house in the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, where he grew up on a peanut farm. That is where his wife, Rosalynn, was laid to rest last year in a burial plot that they chose years ago.
But before Carter reaches his humble final destination, there will be an interstate choreography of grief, ceremony and logistics that is characteristic of state funerals. Ever since the nation’s founding, America has bid farewell to former presidents with an intricate series of events weaving together longstanding traditions and personal touches.
Funerals often are planned by the presidents themselves, who usually have years after leaving the White House to ponder how they want to be memorialized.
Read more:
Did Jimmy Carter blow royal etiquette by kissing Queen Mother on the lips?
Wednesday 8 January 2025 04:00
Alex Croft
The late former US president Jimmy Carter was a relative novice at international diplomacy when made his first visit to the UK just four months into his term in the White House in 1977 – which resulted in him earning the displeasure of the Queen Mother after being said to have given her a parting kiss on the lips.
It was the year of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee, marking her 25th year on the throne, and world leaders attending a G7 summit were invited for a state banquet in Buckingham Palace where they were to meet the Queen and other members of the Royal Family.
Photographs showed Mr Carter and the Queen Mother being all smiles as the president escorted her by her white-gloved hand to their places in a formal group portrait with the G7 leaders before dinner. But the evening would end with a short moment which would spark debate among British tabloids and the American media for decades afterwards, with the president accused of a total ignorance of royal protocol.
Read more:
The humblest president in history: How Jimmy and Rosalynn returned to their Plains home after the White House
Wednesday 8 January 2025 05:00
Gustaf Kilander
Jimmy Carter once held the highest office in the land — but was just as content in his family home in small town Georgia.
At the age of 56, having lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter returned to Plains, Georgia, the small town where both he and his wife Rosalynn were born in the 1920s.
From the White House, they moved back into the ranch house they built in the city in 1961. That modest home is where Carter peacefully died on Sunday at the age of 100.
At the 2020 census, Plains, which to many is only known for being the birthplace of the Carters, had a population of 573. In 2022, the median household income was $36,138.
Read more:
Longest-lived US president was always happy to speak his mind
Wednesday 8 January 2025 06:00
PA Reporters
Jimmy Carter, the United States’ longest-lived president, was never afraid of speaking his mind.
Forthright and fearless, the Nobel Prize winner took pot-shots at former prime minister Tony Blair and ex-US president George W Bush among others.
His death came after repeated bouts of illness in which images of the increasingly frail former president failed to erase memories of his fierce spirit.
Democrat James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr swept to power in 1977 with his Trust Me campaign helping to beat Republican president Gerald Ford.
Read more:
Jimmy Carter’s life in photos
Wednesday 8 January 2025 07:00
Ariana Baio
Jimmy Carter’s life was marked by his devotion to his family, public service and humanitarian efforts.
The former president first emerged into the political scene in the early 1960s and spent the rest of his life working to ensure people in the US and around the world received fair treatment and a better quality of life.
From an early age his desire to make a difference in people’s life was evident.
Read more:
How Jimmy Carter spent his final years building houses for the poor as he continued life of public service
Wednesday 8 January 2025 08:00
Graeme Massie, Ariana Baio
He was the oldest living president and had been out of the White House for more than 35 years, but Jimmy Carter never stopped working to improve the lives of others — much of which included building homes for the needy.
Even well into his 90s, Carter put on a hard hat and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit organization he often partnered with through The Carter Center.
The one-term president — who died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia — worked alongside 103,000 volunteers in 14 countries to build, renovate and repair 4,331 homes with Habitat for Humanity for more than 35 years. Often, Carter and his late wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, volunteered together.
Read more:
Meeting Jimmy Carter — and getting a scoop about Bush, Blair and Iraq from the perfect gentleman
Wednesday 8 January 2025 09:00
Andrew Buncombe
The thing that sticks in my mind — even now — was the welcoming eyes and the warm smile.
He stretched out his hand to offer it in greeting and said something along the measure of: “Thanks for coming down to see us.”
Jimmy Carter — who died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at age 100 — was always known as a gentleman, a farmer from Georgia who had held the most powerful political office in the world. But it did not seem forced, it did not seem an act.
I’d flown to the offices of The Carter Center in Atlanta to interview him about his latest book, The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War. He’d written plenty of books — he would go on to author more than 30 — but this was his first novel, one that the publisher Simon & Schuster described as “a sweeping novel of the American South and the War of Independence.”
Read more:
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter left behind enduring nonprofits as part of their legacy of giving back
Wednesday 8 January 2025 10:00
Thalia Beaty
President Jimmy Carter ‘s legacy of giving back endures in several nonprofits he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, supported for the almost 50 years after they left the White House.
In Los Angeles on Monday, members of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles signed wooden two-by-fours that will be used in a new house as a tribute to the former president, who died at age 100 on Dec. 29. In Houston, they are planning to let members of the community sign a door and wall in a new house to remember the thousands of homes the Carters helped build. They will do the same in Tallahassee, Florida, and numerous other communities, in preparation for Carter’s state funeral on Jan. 9.
The tributes to his dedication to providing affordable housing show how the Carters’ work will continue.
Read more:
Sunday school class with Jimmy Carter: What it was like
Wednesday 8 January 2025 11:00
Paul Newberry
It never got old.
No matter how many times one crammed into the modest sanctuary at Maranatha Baptist Church, there was always some wisdom to be gleaned from the measured, Bible-inspired words of Jimmy Carter.
This was another side of the 39th president, a down-to-earth man of steadfast faith who somehow found time to teach Sunday school classes when he wasn’t building homes for the needy, or advocating for fair elections, or helping eradicate awful diseases.
For young and old, straight and gay, believers and nonbelievers, Black and white and brown, Maranatha was a far-off-the-beaten path destination in southwest Georgia where Carter, well into his 90s, stayed connected with his fellow citizens of the world.
Read more:
‘We give money, we don’t take it’: Where might former president Jimmy Carter’s savings go after he dies?
Wednesday 8 January 2025 12:00
Katie Hawkinson
Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States, was not an extravagant man.
He lived on a property in Plains, Georgia — where he died on December 29 at age 100 — that was worth a fraction of the average U.S. house price, he shopped at budget stores, and he did not fly privately.
The least expensive former president for the U.S. government, Carter and his wife Rosalynn — who died in 2023 — lived a surprisingly average life after his term ended in 1981.
While the Carters lived a public life, they were nothing if not generous with their money.
Read more:
Who are Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s children?
Wednesday 8 January 2025 13:00
Gustaf Kilander, Amelia Neath
When Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter entered the White House in 1977, they became the first couple since John F Kennedy to raise their children in the executive mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Over the years, their family continued to grow in size, with nearly two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren added to the Carter clan.
“We have a big family now. We have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 38 of us in all,” Carter told CNN in 2015.
“So, we try to hold our family together and just enjoy the family life.”
Read more:
Carter reflected on 1980 Olympic boycott: ‘A bad decision’
Wednesday 8 January 2025 14:00
Eddie Pells
It was a decision that robbed hundreds of athletes of their once-in-a-lifetime chance at Olympic glory, and for more than four decades, it weighed heavily on the man who made it — Jimmy Carter.
Carter’s passing Sunday has unearthed memories from his 1977-1981 presidency. Somewhere between his greatest foreign-policy success (the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt) and his greatest failure (the Iran hostage crisis) sits the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
It was Carter who called for that boycott — a Cold War power play intended to express America’s disdain for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In his 1980 State of the Union Address, Carter said the invasion “could pose the most serious threat to world peace since the second World War.”
Read more:
Here's the schedule for the final day of funeral rites for President Jimmy Carter
13:27
AP
Here is Thursday’s schedule for the final day of rites honoring Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, who died Dec. 29. All times are Eastern:
9 a.m. — Carter’s casket departs the U.S. Capitol. The funeral motorcade travels to Washington National Cathedral.
9:30 a.m. — Carter’s motorcade arrives at Washington National Cathedral.
10 a.m. — The Washington funeral begins.
11:15 a.m. — Carter’s remains and his family depart the cathedral for Joint Base Andrews.
11:45 a.m. — They board Special Air Mission 39.
2 p.m. — Special Air Mission 39 arrives at Lawson Army Airfield at Fort Moore, Georgia. Carter’s remains will be transferred with ceremony to the hearse. Carter and his family then travel to Plains by motorcade.
3:30 p.m. — Motorcade arrives at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.
3:45 p.m. — An invitation-only funeral at the church begins.
4:45 p.m. — A motorcade takes participants from the church to the Carter residence.
5:20 p.m. — A U.S. Navy missing man formation conducts a flyover in honor of Carter’s naval service and time as commander in chief, followed by a private graveside ceremony and interment.
What is closed on January 9? What to know about national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter
13:33
Gustaf Kilander
The U.S. will honor the late President Jimmy Carter with a national day of mourning, which will see some offices closed for the day.
Carter died at the age of 100 on December 29. President Joe Biden used an executive order to declare January 9, the day of Carter’s state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, a day of mourning.
Biden is set to deliver a eulogy, and President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will attend the ceremony. Flags are being flown at half-staff for the 30-day period following the late president’s death, CNN noted.
The most recent national day of mourning took place in December 2018 following the death of President George H.W. Bush at the age of 94.
Here’s what will definitely be closed on Thursday.
PHOTOS: Hearse awaits Carter’s casket for journey to Washington National Cathedral
14:00
Gustaf Kilander
Jimmy Carter will be honored at Washington funeral before burial in Georgia hometown
14:00
Bill Barrow
Jimmy Carter, who considered himself an outsider even as he sat in the Oval Office as the 39th U.S. president, will be honored Thursday with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown.
President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign, will eulogize his fellow Democrat 11 days before he leaves office. All of Carter’s living successors are expected to attend the Washington funeral, including President-elect Donald Trump, who paid his respects before Carter’s casket Wednesday.
The rare gathering of commanders in chief is one example of how Thursday will be an unusual moment of comity for the nation. Days of formal ceremonies and remembrances from political leaders, business titans and rank-and-file citizens have honored Carter for decency and using a prodigious work ethic to do more than obtain political power.
Read more:
Watch live: Former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral takes place at Washington National Cathedral
14:07
Lucy Leeson
Watch live as former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral takes place at Washington National Cathedral today (9 January).
The 39th U.S. president, will be honored with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown.
President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign, will eulogize his fellow Democrat 11 days before he leaves office. All of Carter’s living successors are expected to attend the Washington funeral, including President-elect Donald Trump, who paid his respects before Carter’s casket Wednesday.
Thursday will conclude six days of national rites that began in Plains, Georgia, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. Ceremonies continued in Atlanta and Washington, where Carter, a former Naval officer, engineer and peanut farmer, has lain in state since Tuesday.
PHOTOS: Carter’s casket leaves the Capitol
14:10
Gustaf Kilander
Biden arrives to Washington National Cathedral
14:28
Gustaf Kilander
President Joe Biden’s motorcade arrived at the Washington National Cathedral at 9.20 a.m. He was traveling with the first lady, vice president, and second gentleman.
The motorcade drove through a snowy Rock Creek Park before driving along Waterside Drive to Massachusetts Avenue.
Onlookers watched the motorcade drive by from outside the British Embassy.
PHOTOS: Carter’s casket leaves the Capitol
14:41
Gustaf Kilander
PHOTOS: Dignitaries gather for Carter's funeral
14:44
Gustaf Kilander
Trump greets Pence at funeral
14:54
Gustaf Kilander
Donald and Melania Trump have arrived at the Washington National Cathedral.
Trump shook hands with his former Vice President Mike Pence as he sat down.
