Former US President, Jimmy Carter has been honored at a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.
The state funeral concluded six days of national rites that began in Plains, Georgia, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died after 22 months in hospice care.
President-elect Donald Trump and former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama were in attendance at the state funeral.
It marked the first time all of them came face to face since the funeral of George H.W. Bush in December 2018.
Tributes to the former President praised him as an honest man who was a leader ahead of his time.
President Joe Biden delivered a eulogy, saying that Carter “never let the tides of politics divert him from his mission to serve and shape the world.” Biden told the mourners, “The man had character.”
Biden said that there is an obligation to stand up to the abuse of power in his eulogy.
“We’re all fallible. But it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving to do things, the right things? What value – what are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope? Ego or generosity? Do we show grace? Do we keep the faith when it’s most tested?”
Joe Biden
Biden highlighted Carter’s life and referred to the late President as “a man who never let the ties of politics divert him from his mission to serve and shape the world.”
“We’re keeping the faith with the best of humankind and the best of America, is a story, in my view, from my perspective, of Jimmy Carter’s life. The story of a man, to state the obvious, you’ve heard today, some great, great eulogies, who came from a house without running water, nor electricity, and rose as a pinnacle of power.”
Joe Biden
The 39th President, who died last month in Georgia, was the oldest living former US President and the first to reach 100. He led enduring foreign policy initiatives, including a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the normalization of relations with China and the treaties that gave Panama control of the Panama Canal from the US.
While he only served one term as President, from 1977 to 1981, the former peanut farmer from the US state of Georgia left a lasting legacy during his post-presidential career.
He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002 for the work his organisation, The Carter Center, did to fight the Guinea worm disease in Africa and to monitor elections across the world.
He was also heavily involved in building homes for low-income people through Habitat for Humanity, earning him admiration across the political spectrum.
At the cathedral, Ted Mondale, son of Walter Mondale, Carter’s Vice president, read a eulogy his father wrote for Carter before his own death in 2021.
Steve Ford, the grandson of President Gerald Ford, read a tribute from his grandfather, who died in 2006. Carter defeated Ford in 1976 but the pair, and their first ladies, became close friends, and Carter eulogised Ford at his funeral.
Stuart Eizenstat, a top White House staffer for Carter, also delivered a speech, as did the former President’s grandson, Jason Carter.
Carter’s Remains Return To Plains
Following the funeral service for the late President, the motorcade carrying Jimmy Carter’s body departed the Washington National Cathedral.
Carter’s motorcade will next go to Joint Base Andrews, and then the former president’s body will travel to Plains, Georgia, for a private internment at the family residence.
Carter’s remains, his four children and extended family will return to his home state of Georgia for an afternoon funeral.
He will be buried on family land in a plot next to Rosalynn, to whom Carter was married for more than 77 years.
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