Jimmy Carter funeral reside updates: All 5 residing presidents to attend service in Washington DC as nation mourns
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The funeral of President Jimmy Carter will bring together all five living holders of the office as political leaders in Washington honor the life of the 39th president, who died on December 29 at the age of 100.
Thursday’s funeral will be 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.
After his funeral service, the remains of the late president will be taken back to Georgia for a private ceremony and burial in Plains.
President Joe Biden was a friend of Carter’s, and he will deliver a eulogy at the service at the Washington National Cathedral.
Biden said following Carter’s death that the late president was a “dear friend” and lauded his character and noted his record as president and his more than 40 years of humanitarian work after leaving the presidency.
“What I find extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people all around the world, all over the world, feel they lost a friend, as well, even though they never met him,” Biden said. “That’s because Jimmy Carter lived a life measured not by words but by his deeds.”
PHOTOS: Carter’s casket leaves the Capitol
Watch live: Former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral takes place at Washington National Cathedral
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.
Jimmy Carter will be honored at Washington funeral before burial in Georgia hometown
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:
PHOTOS: Hearse awaits Carter’s casket for journey to Washington National Cathedral
What is closed on January 9? What to know about national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter
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.
Here’s the schedule for the final day of funeral rites for President Jimmy Carter
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.
Carter reflected on 1980 Olympic boycott: ‘A bad decision’
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.”
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Who are Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s children?
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.”
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‘We give money, we don’t take it’: Where might former president Jimmy Carter’s savings go after he dies?
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.
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Sunday school class with Jimmy Carter: What it was like
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.
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Source: independent.co.uk
