Jimmy Carter, Who Relished His Global Platform as a Former President, Dies at 100 

Former President Jimmy Carter, a son of Georgia who used his post-presidency as a platform for global impact, died Sunday at 100 in his home in Plains. 

The longest-lived U.S. president served just one term ending in 1981, dislodged by a disgruntled electorate as the nation grappled with high inflation and thorny geopolitical issues including the Iran hostage crisis and the ongoing Cold War. 

In that time, Mr. Carter cemented signature foreign policy achievements, some politically costly at the time and still controversial today, which the president said were rooted in an approach favoring “fairness, not force” — offering dignity and self-determination to negotiating partners, even those with adversarial views.

The plain-spoken Nobel Peace Prize winner from Plains, Ga., transferred control of the Panama Canal to the isthmian nation in 1977, presided over the Camp David accords that eventually brought peace to Israel and Egypt in 1978 and the following year normalized relations with China, then a Cold War adversary of the Soviet Union. 

Mr. Carter, who took office after one term as Georgia’s governor, also appointed many Georgians to federal positions and ambassadorial posts, elevating the state’s influence in Washington and expanding its reach and reputation around the world. 

Andrew Young, the civil rights leader and congressman appointed as Mr. Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations, would go on to become a two-term Atlanta mayor, utilizing the relationships built in the Carter administration, particularly in Africa, to help bolster the city’s successful 1996 Olympic bid.

International moves laid the groundwork for what Mr. Carter would later describe as his most important work: bolstering democracies and fighting disease globally through his Atlanta-based nonprofit, The Carter Center, founded in 1982.

“Today, we lost a cherished friend, inspiring mentor, and courageous leader with the passing of former President Jimmy Carter. The world lost a great humanitarian and man of integrity, vision, and depth,” Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander said Sunday in a statement.

Until his health declined, Mr. Carter would periodically grace discussions at the center, set on a hill overlooking Atlanta, offering personal ruminations and taking open questions at its quarterly Board of Councilors meetings. He also would sit in for conferences where scholars, diplomats and elected leaders continued his legacy of dialogue as a means to conflict resolution.  

During one such event, he shared a New Yorker cartoon in which a child says, “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be a former president.” This encapsulated how he felt about the platform the office provided for his humanitarian work, whether rolling up his sleeves to build homes for Habitat for Humanity or advancing the center’s work on neglected tropical diseases. 

Mr. Carter often said he wanted to outlive the last Guinea worm, citing the center’s work to eradicate the parasitic disease still found in a few African countries. As of 2023, just 14 cases remained, down from 3.5 million globally when the center’s work began in 1986. 

If ultimately successful, the campaign would constitute the first time the world would see a disease wiped out without vaccines, offering validation for the center’s method of working closely with national health ministries to empower and educate local communities. 

Over more than 100 post-presidency trips around the world, from Africa to the United Kingdom and beyond, the folksy Mr. Carter made many of the world’s citizens, from elected leaders to the poorest villagers, feel like he was their president, leaving breadcrumbs of legacy that built on his role fostering relations between the U.S. and their respective countries. 

Nowhere was that more true than Japan, which in recent years has taken many steps to honor a half-century of partnership that started when Mr. Carter opened Georgia’s first international office in Tokyo in 1973 as governor. 

That office celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, with Georgia Department of Economic Development officials crediting Mr. Carter’s vision not only for opening the floodgates for Japanese investors, who now employ some 40,000 Georgians, but also for solidifying a strategic pursuit of international business that has paid dividends for the state: Now, Georgia has offices in 12 markets, including a Europe office also established by Mr. Carter. 

“As the only American president thus far to come from Georgia, he showed the world the impact our state and its people have on the country,” said Gov. Brian Kemp in a statement praising Mr. Carter for his values, exemplified by a 77-year marriage to Rosalynn Carter, his role in the civil rights movement and his return to rural Georgia after a lifetime of achievement.  

Mr. Carter is credited with helping woo the state’s first Japanese manufacturing investment, the zipper company YKK, during his time as governor.

That bond persists today, as YKK builds on the personal friendship between Mr. Carter and founder Tadao Yoshida, cemented when the former president visited Kurobe, YKK’s hometown for its 50th anniversary in 1984.

In 2022, the Japanese business community spearheaded the construction of a traditional Japanese tower to house the Peace Bell given to Mr. Carter by the Consulate General of Japan in 1985. 

Destined to be melted down for ammunition during World War II, the bell escaped unscathed and ended up in the United States, where it was bought by the consulate. It sat in the Carter Center’s lobby for nearly 40 years, until carpenters from Miyoshi, Japan, where it originated, flew to Atlanta to build a replica tower. 

Mr. Carter is celebrated in Konu, the small district where the Shoganji temple sits, through the Jimmy Carter Civic Center and museum, a street bearing his name and likeness, and the Carter’s Peanuts brand of sweets, baked with peanuts grown in Japan from plants Mr. Carter brought to the area from Plains. Miyoshi and Americus, Ga., are sister cities and maintain a robust student exchange. 

The enduring link between these areas of Hiroshima prefecture and Georgia represents one example of how the seeds of international collaboration sown by Mr. Carter continue to sprout many decades later. 

In a statement, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said he was born in Georgia with Mr. Carter at the helm and learned the pledge of allegiance with the president’s photo on the wall. 

He praised Mr. Carter and Rosalynn as “the very definition of servant leaders” and noted that they sought humanity’s good, not their own personal gain, after leaving office, setting an example for other public officials to emulate.  

“From building affordable homes through Habitat for Humanity to protecting democracy across the globe by ensuring fair and free elections, President Carter has changed the world forever,” Mr. Dickens said, noting the importance of passing on the story of Mr. Carter’s legacy to future generations. 

The Carter Center issued the following statement: 

ATLANTA — Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He was 100, the longest-lived president in U.S. history.

President Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Rosalynn, and one grandchild.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

There will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia. The final arrangements for President Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, are still pending. The schedule will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region at jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/statefunerals/.

Members of the public are encouraged to visit the official tribute website to the life of President Carter at www.jimmycartertribute.org. This site includes the official online condolence book as well as print and visual biographical materials commemorating his life.

The Carter family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30307.