President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, GA at the age of 100.
The former 39th president, Georgia governor, and senator entered hospice care on Feb. 18, 2023 after several hospital stays, according to The Carter Center in Atlanta.
Carter was feted for his centennial birthday at an all-star concert at the Fox Theatre on Sept. 17, 2024. The Carter Center said the former president also fulfilled his wish to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris in the presidential election, doing so by absentee ballot.
He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who passed away at age 96 on Nov. 19, 2023 after suffering from dementia. President Carter attended her memorial service held at Emory University. The couple had been married for 77 years.
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James Earl Carter, Jr. was born Oct. 12, 1924 in Plains. After attending both Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, he received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant. He later served as senior officers of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.
On July 7, 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains. When his father died in 1953, he resigned his naval commission and returned to Georgia to take over the Carter farms He and Rosalynn operated Carter’s Warehouse, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company. They have four children: Jack, James III, Donnel, and Amy.
Carter quickly became inolved in the community, serving on the school board, hospital authority, and the library. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate, but lost his first gubernatorial bid in 1966. In the next election, he became Georgia’s 76th governor.
In 1974, he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. He won his party’s nomination on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention and was elected president on Nov. 2, 1976.
Despite only serving one term, Carter’s significant foreign policy accomplishments include the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.
On the domestic side, the administration’s achievements included a comprehensive energy program conducted by a new Department of Energy; deregulation in energy, transportation, communications, and finance; major educational programs under a new Department of Education; and major environmental protection legislation, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
Post-presidency, Carter became well-known for his work as a diplomat, campaigning for human rights, and most notably with Habitat for Humanity, where he and Rosalynn worked alongside volunteers to build more than 4,000 homes across the globe.
After his presidency, he also established The Carter Center (alongside his presidential library) in Atlanta’s Poncey-Highland neighborhood with a mission of “resolving conflicts, advancing democracy and fighting diseases” across the globe.
In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
This biography is partly adapted from information provided by The Carter Center.
