James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, the 39th President of the United States, passed away Sunday surrounded by his family in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, The Carter Center announced Sunday. He celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 1.
He had been living in hospice care since February 2023 at home.
Preparations for an official state funeral have begun. The official state funeral in Washington, D.C. will be held on Jan. 9, the White House confirmed Monday, and Carter will lie in state in the Capitol's Rotunda.
"Today, America and the world lost and extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian," President Joe Biden said in a statement from the White House, where flags were lowered to half staff. "Over six decades, Jill and I had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend. But, what’s extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well. He was a man of great character and courage, hope and optimism."
The former U.S. Navy submarine serviceman returned to Georgia after his military service and went into the "family business" of peanut growing and farming. His political career sprung from that, as he opposing racial segregation in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s. He was first a Georgia State Senator (1963-67), then Georgia governor (1971-75).
He would win the Democratic presidential nomination as a dark horse after George McGowan lost that party's entry in the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to Richard Nixon. Carter went on to win the 1976 election over Gerald Ford, but lost his re-election bid in 1980 to Ronald Reagan amid trying economic times, an Iranian hostage situation and a U.S. energy crisis. ESPN reports he was the first president to welcome a Super Bowl champion to the White House (the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1980, who visited alongside the World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates). Carter also was president in 1980 when he announced that the United States would boycott the Olympic Summer Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. More than 60 nations ultimately boycotted the Games, including West Germany, Japan and China.
The next 44 years of his life, however, would be what he'd receive wider acclaim for, first as a diplomat to the Middle East and North Korea (where he visited at age 87 for talks to ease tensions between North and South Korea), and more fully, healthy years as a humanitarian. In 2002 Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his worldwide efforts. Habitat for Humanity was founded in Americus, Georgia, about 10 miles from Carter's hometown, in 1975, and starting in 1984, the Carter Work Project led he and his family across the country and foreign lands to help provide housing.
At 100 years old, Carter was the longest-lived former U.S. president. Bill Clinton (age 78, served 1993-2001) is now the longest-lived president. George W. Bush is one month older than Clinton.
In 2012, he passed Herbert Hoover as the longest-retired president. He and Eleanor Rosalynn Smith were married for 77 years, the longest-married marital couple, when she passed away in 2023 at age 96. Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy — along with 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization he founded after losing the 1980 presidential bid, said. Carter penned 32 books, on subjects from “appreciations of Scripture and nature” to “advice on how to live a meaningful life.”
