Nation prepares to say farewell as Jimmy Carter procession goes to DC

Jeremy Redmon and Caleb Groves, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Jan 7, 2025

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ATLANTA — Now the nation gets its chance to say goodbye to the 39th president, a Renaissance man from Georgia who championed peace, human rights and the eradication of diseases long after he left the White House.

During a brief ceremony this afternoon, former President Jimmy Carter’s flag-draped casket was brought aboard “Special Air Mission 39″ at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta for a flight headed north. Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens were among dozens of mourners who silently observed the proceedings on the tarmac.

“Jimmy Carter was one of the greatest men to live and a great example for all service members,” said Samuel Olivos, a U.S. Navy seaman who was part of the funeral ceremonial team at Dobbins.

Carter will be honored today at a series of events in Washington, D.C., that will conclude at the U.S. Capitol. A winter storm that blanketed the Washington area with snow delayed the funeral procession of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient by 90 minutes.

Carter, the only Georgian ever elected to the White House, entered home hospice care in Plains in February 2023 after a series of short hospital stays. He died last month after turning 100 in October.

In his 2020 biography of Carter, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life,” Jonathan Alter underscored the former president’s striking versatility. Among other things, Alter wrote, Carter became a skilled farmer, naval officer, woodworker, Sunday school teacher, legislator, governor, president, diplomat, homebuilder, painter, professor, memoirist, poet and children’s book author.

“He was the first American president since Thomas Jefferson who could fairly claim to be a Renaissance man, or at least a world-class autodidact,” Alter wrote.

Later today, the naval veteran will be honored at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington. Located off Pennsylvania Avenue, the memorial features a statue of a lone sailor, towering masts with signal flags and bronze sculptures depicting Navy history.

As a boy growing up in South Georgia, Carter dreamed about becoming a naval officer.

“Although I might stand in our yard and admire the railroad engineers as they went by and tooted their steam whistles in answer to my waving hand, it was not their admirable job but the vague image of someday being on a ship that became my dream,” Carter wrote in his 2001 memoir, “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood.”

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, Carter became a submariner and rose to the rank of lieutenant. In 1953, Carter left the Navy after his father became terminally ill with cancer. He returned to Georgia to take over the family farm, paving the way for his political career. An advanced Seawolf-class submarine is named for Carter.

Next today, a horse-drawn caisson will bring the former president down Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the U.S. Capitol. The procession is designed to mirror the inaugural parade in which Carter and his family walked on foot from the U.S. Capitol to the White House on Jan. 20, 1977.

In the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, Carter’s remains will be placed on a platform that was built in 1865 to support Abraham Lincoln’s casket. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are scheduled to deliver eulogies and lay wreaths there. Carter will lie in state in the rotunda today and Wednesday, accompanied by a special U.S. military honor guard.

On Thursday morning, a funeral service will be held for Carter at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden is expected to deliver a eulogy. Jason Carter, one of Jimmy Carter’s grandsons, is also expected to speak.

Afterward, Carter’s remains will be flown to Fort Moore near Columbus. Finally, his motorcade will pass through Plains before he is buried at his home next to his beloved wife of 77 years, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023. The Navy is scheduled to conduct a flyover in honor of Georgia’s Renaissance man.

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