Former President Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived president in U.S. history, died at his home, his family and the Carter Center confirmed Sunday. He was 100.
Carter, a Democrat, served as president for one term from 1977 to 1981. He’s also well-known for his humanitarian work after leaving the White House, including for Habitat for Humanity and peace deal negotiations.
“The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude,” the president-elect said.
“I will always be proud to have presented the Medal of Freedom to him and Rosalynn in 1999, and to have worked with him in the years after he left the White House,” former President Clinton said.
Remembered for his quick rise in national politics and dedication to world conflict resolution in the decades after he left office, Carter’s years in the White House marked a transition from the Watergate era to the Reagan conservatism of the 1980s.
He oversaw major changes to the U.S. government during a time of high inflation, high interest rates, unemployment, and international instability, including the Iran hostage crisis.
The former peanut farmer was also one of four presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize, cited for decades advancing “peaceful solutions” to international conflict and advancing human rights, democracy, and social and economic development.
“The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices,” Carter said during his acceptance speech in 2002.
“God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace.”
Carter, whose full name is James Earl Carter, Jr., was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia.
The future politician was raised in the nearby community of Archery by his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., a farmer and businessman, and by his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.
After attending public school in Plains, Carter spent his college years at Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology before earning a science degree in 1946 from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
The same year, he married Rosalynn Smith, a union that lasted until she died in 2023.
He soon entered the Navy, serving as a submariner in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant.
Admiral Hyman Rickover chose him for the nuclear submarine program before assigning Carter to Schenectady, New York.
He completed graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics.
This proved pivotal for the future peanut farmer, as he soon became the senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew on the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.
Carter served as a naval officer for seven years until his father died from pancreatic cancer in 1953, prompting a move back to Plains, where he took over the family business, Carter Farms.
He and his wife also operated Carter’s Warehouse, a farm supply and general-purpose seed company.
Beginning in Politics
The future president started his political career on county boards supervising education, the library, and the hospital authority before becoming a Georgia state senator in 1962.He first ran for governor in 1966, losing in the primary to Ellis Arnall and Lester Maddox, but won the 1970 gubernatorial election.
As Georgia’s 76th governor, Carter declared in his inaugural address that “the time for racial discrimination is over” while also emphasizing the importance of ecology and government efficiency.
The Democratic National Committee selected him to be the campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections, which saw Democrats expand their majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
He announced his presidential campaign on Dec. 12, 1974, and was nominated on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, choosing former Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.) as his running mate.
During the 1976 presidential election, he pitched himself as a reformer “untainted” by Washington politics, striking a contrast with former President Gerald Ford, who faced mounting scrutiny for pardoning his predecessor during the Watergate fallout.
Mixed Presidency
As president, he sought to combat rising inflation and unemployment, touting an increase in nearly eight million jobs and a decrease in the budget deficit by the end of his term.Carter also presided over the new Departments of Energy and Education, instituting new programs in both agencies.
He also signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, doubling the size of the national park system and tripling its wilderness areas.
Two notable achievements during his presidency were the Camp David Agreement in 1978, establishing amity between Egypt and Israel, and the Panama Canal treaties in 1977, returning control of the canal to Panama in 1999.
Carter also established full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, following in the footsteps of his predecessors.
In 1979, he negotiated the SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union in an effort to reduce the manufacturing of strategic nuclear weapons.
However, his presidency also hit roadblocks, as the country was bedeviled by rising energy costs and unemployment, historically high levels of inflation, soaring interest rates, and tensions with international politics.
Efforts to reduce the increasing inflation and interest rates resulted in a short recession, further swamping Carter’s administration.
He withdrew the SALT II treaty after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
Yet one of the central flashpoints for the end of Carter’s time in the White House was the Iran Hostage Crisis when Iranian militants kidnapped 52 American diplomats and citizens from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Charity Work
After losing the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982 to provide international conflict resolution, advance democracy, protect human rights, and eradicate disease.With the Carter Center, he helped with conflict mediation in countries and regions around the world, including Ethiopia (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Sudan (1999), Uganda (1999), Venezuela (2002-2003), Colombia (2008), and the Middle East (2003-present).
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Carter the 2002 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.”
He and his wife volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for one week every year until 2020. Rosalynn Carter died in 2023 at the age of 96.
“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me,” Carter said in a statement after her death.
He entered hospice care on Feb. 18, 2023, and remained there until his death.
The former president had been diagnosed with skin cancer in 2015 that soon spread to his liver and brain, but after receiving treatment, the cancer went into remission.
He is survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.
President Joe Biden accepted a request to deliver Carter’s eulogy when he visited the former president during hospice care in 2023.
