Kamala Harris eulogized former President Jimmy Carter as a ‘gifted’ man of grace
Dignitaries, including Supreme Court justices and members of Congress, take part in lying-in-state ceremony at Capitol Rotunda
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Your support makes all the difference.Vice President Kamala Harris eulogized former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, where Carter lay in state, remembering him as a leader who was "ahead of his time" and deeply empathetic to the needs of the people he represented.
Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died on December 29, at the age of 100.
Harris praised Carter for leaving the world "better than he found it," and praised him for his progressive actions, including appointing more Black Americans to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined. He also appointed five times as many women, Harris noted.
The vice president also praised Carter's commitment to diplomacy, noting the success of the Camp David Accords in 1978.
She did not just praise his time as president; Harris said Carter "established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leave an extraordinary post-presidential legacy."
Harris praised his Carter Center, his public health workers, and his "tireless advocacy for peace and democracy" around the world.
The vice president called Carter a "rare example" of a "gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace," and said it was clear that he "loved our country."
"He lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world a better place than he found it," she said.
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Jimmy Carter: His father was a white supremacist, but a black farmhand gave him faith and purpose
For decades after he was crushed in the 1980 presidential election, Jimmy Carter was defined as a loser. But, by any standard, he won at life. He was the longest-living American president, the longest married (77 years, and happily), and – especially if you look at his whole career – among the most accomplished and productive figures of our era.
Now it’s time for the public to reassess this inspiring, complex, and confounding man. When I first began researching his epic American life in 2015, I was struck by the ubiquity of the easy shorthand on him – bad president; great former president. Even now, everyone from political scientists to the average person on the street will express this idea as if it’s an established fact. The problem is, the widespread conventional wisdom on Carter is mostly wrong.
Read more:
Jimmy Carter: Born to a white supremacist, but raised by a black farmhand
A complex and confounding man, says his biographer, Jonathan Alter, who looks at the extraordinary life and achievements of this misunderstood American president and the people who shaped him
Jimmy Carter: House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke during a Washington DC service honoring former President Jimmy Carter. Johnson said Carter was a “frugal” man who “hated government waste” and called his contributions to the nation “remarkable.”
He also praised Carter for his work with Habitat for Humanity and his commitment to serve one week every year to help build homes for Americans in need.
Johnson further praised the president for living out the ideals of his faith.
Kamala Harris praises Jimmy Carter during DC ceremony, noting his progressive accomplishments and “unshakeable belief in the power of diplomacy"
Kamala Harris praised former President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony in Washington, DC noting his progressive accomplishments and “unshakeable belief in the power of diplomacy.”
She noted that Carter was ahead of the time on climate issues, passing a dozen pieces of major legislation promoting clean energy, and that he had appointed more Black officials to the federal bench than any president before him.
Harris praised his committment to diplomacy, in particular the success of the Camp David Accords in 1978.
In pictures: Inside Jimmy Carter’s state funeral
Carter will lie in state at the US Capitol until Thursday, Biden to deliver euology
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 aged 100, will lie in state at the US Capitol until Thursday.
On Thursday morning, former heads of state and dignitaries will attend a funeral for Carter at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
President Joe Biden will deliver a euology during that service.
America – and Donald Trump – have much to learn from the life and service of Jimmy Carter
As the tributes poured in from the United States and around the world, it was hard not to observe that even in death there can be good and bad timing – and Jimmy Carter’s was perfect.
He had reached the age of 100, to become the longest-lived US president ever. His state funeral will take place, appropriately, under a Democratic administration, and could well mark the last public appearance of Joe Biden as president before the inauguration of his successor.
Most of all, with just three weeks remaining before Donald Trump enters the White House for the second time, the passing of Jimmy Carter has provided the ideal pretext for Trump’s detractors to hurl yet more disapproving stones at the man they love to hate.
Read more:
America – and Trump – have much to learn from the life and service of Jimmy Carter
Editorial: The contrast between the peanut farmer and the mogul could not be more different as the US marks the passing of its most humble president – and braces for the return of its most divisive
Jimmy Carter is back in Washington, where he remained an outsider
Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the nation’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returned to Washington for three days of state funeral rites starting Tuesday.
Carter’s remains, which had been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, left the Atlanta campus Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 departed Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A motorcade carried the casket into Washington for a final journey to the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects.
In Georgia, eight military pallbearers held Carter’s casket as canons fired on the tarmac nearby. They carried it to a vehicle that lifted it to the passenger compartment of the aircraft, the iconic blue and white Boeing 747 variant that is known as Air Force One when the sitting president is on board. Carter never traveled as president on the jet, which first flew as Air Force One in 1990 with President George H.W. Bush.
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Jimmy Carter is back in Washington, where he remained an outsider
Jimmy Carter's state funeral has moved to Washington after observances in his native Georgia
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter left behind enduring nonprofits as part of their legacy of giving back
President Jimmy Carter ‘s legacy of giving back endures in several nonprofits he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, supported for the almost 50 years after they left the White House.
In Los Angeles on Monday, members of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles signed wooden two-by-fours that will be used in a new house as a tribute to the former president, who died at age 100 on Dec. 29. In Houston, they are planning to let members of the community sign a door and wall in a new house to remember the thousands of homes the Carters helped build. They will do the same in Tallahassee, Florida, and numerous other communities, in preparation for Carter’s state funeral on Jan. 9.
The tributes to his dedication to providing affordable housing show how the Carters’ work will continue.
READ MORE:
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter left behind enduring nonprofits as part of their legacy of giving back
President Jimmy Carter’s legacy of giving back endures in several nonprofits through which he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, worked in the almost 50 years after they left the White House
Jimmy Carter made eradicating Guinea worm disease a top mission
Noble Prize-winning peacemaker Jimmy Carter spent nearly four decades waging war to eliminate an ancient parasite plaguing the world’s poorest people.
Rarely fatal but searingly painful and debilitating, Guinea worm disease infects people who drink water tainted with larvae that grow inside the body into worms as much as 3-feet-long. The noodle-thin parasites then burrow their way out, breaking through the skin in burning blisters.
Carter made eradicating Guinea worm a top mission of The Carter Center, the nonprofit he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, founded after leaving the White House. The former president rallied public health experts, billionaire donors, African heads of state and thousands of volunteer villagers to work toward eliminating a human disease for only the second time in history.
Read more:
Jimmy Carter made eradicating Guinea worm disease a top mission
Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter spent decades waging war against an ancient parasite
Despite Trump’s protests, flags will be flown at half-staff on Inauguration Day to remember Jimmy Carter
As former President Jimmy Carter lies in state at the US Capitol, flags at US federal buildings around the world have been lowered to half staff, and will remain that way until January 28.
That means that American flags will be at half-staff — a sign of national mourning — when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20.
Despite Trump’s complaints that “nobody wants to see this” and that “no American can be happy about it,” the flag lowering has nothing to do with him.
When a president dies, US law requires that flags at federal buildings be flown at half-staff for 30 days. Because Carter died on December 29, that means the mourning period will occur in tandem with Trump’s inauguration.
Thus far, there is no reason to think that is going to change before January 20.
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