President Jimmy Carter will be honored with a state funeral Thursday, capping days of honoring the contributions of a man who remained an influential leader on the world stage even after leaving office.
Carter, who died late last month at the age of 100, was interred this week in the Rotunda of the Capitol. His casket will be moved from the Capitol with his family to the Washington National Cathedral for his funeral.
President Joe Biden is expected to pay his respects there. Condolences from former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Walter Mondale will also be delivered by their sons.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress, former presidents, Supreme Court justices and members of the Carter administration will also be in attendance.
President-elect Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid their respects at the Capitol on Wednesday night.
After the funeral, proceedings will proceed to Georgia, where a private family funeral will be held, and Carter will be buried on the grounds of his home in Plains, Georgia.
Mr. Carter was little known outside his home state of Georgia before he ran for president in 1976 and won.
He served only one term, rejected by voters shaken by the global oil crisis and the kidnapping of American diplomats by Iranian Islamic revolutionaries.
For decades, the Democratic Party’s achievements were overshadowed by its Republican successor, Ronald Reagan. Reagan undermined many of Carter’s policies, including experimental solar panels that Carter installed on the roof of the White House to promote alternative energy.
But Carter’s accomplishments, both his dedication to philanthropy since taking office, including Habitat for Humanity, and his future accomplishments as president, have left historians and the public at large. It has been valued for many years in the eyes of She talks about issues like civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental protection at the time.
Harris spoke at a ceremony at the Capitol on Tuesday.
“Jimmy Carter was an all-too-rare example of a gifted man who walked with humility, modesty and grace,” she said. “He lived his faith, served others, and left this world in a better way than he could have imagined.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised Carter’s volunteerism and work on housing construction, including a 1994 project in Thune’s home state of South Dakota, on behalf of the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. He commented on how he worked on it.
“He came here to get down into the weeds and down into the dirt, and he literally did that with a lot of habitat construction,” Thune said.
