Jimmy Carter, former President and Georgia native, dead at 100

Former President Jimmy Carter, the Georgia native who was the longest living president in U.S. history, has died. He was 100.

His son, Chip Carter confirmed that the former president passed away at his home in Plains around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday.

The news follows the passing of his beloved wife, Rosalynn Carter. The former First Lady died in November of 2023, at the age of 96. “She died peacefully, with family by her side,” The Carter Center announced in a statement.

From Plains, Georgia to Washington D.C., Jimmy Carter’s story is an amazing one.

On January 12, 1971, Jimmy Carter became the 76th Governor of Georgia. WSB reporters first learned of Mr. Carter’s White House ambitions while at a meeting at the Governor’s Mansion in 1974. When the question about a presidential campaign came up, Carter confidently confirmed he would be running.

When Carter entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1976, he was considered to have little chance against nationally better-known politicians. His name recognition reportedly polled at two percent. However in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Carter pledged to the American people he would never tell a lie.

Carter of course went on to defeat Republican candidate Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. He served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

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After he took office in 1977, there were many turbulent times for Carter, but some experts point out a lot of it was inherited from the Nixon years.

A highlight of his time as president was the 1978 Camp David Accords, where he mediated an historic peace agreement between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat.

Israel-Egypt peace accord

Writing for History.com, Jesse Greenspan explains that “Israel and Egypt did not make good neighbors.” Greenspan adds that in the three decades following modern Israel’s founding in 1948, “the two countries waged four major wars against one another, plus a so-called War of Attrition in which they traded artillery fire along the Suez Canal.”

However, when Carter took office in 1977, Greenspan writes “glimmers of hope began to appear.” In the summer of 1978, Greenspan reports that negotiations between the two countries seemingly stalled. “To break the impasse, Carter invited Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin to a summit at Camp David, sequestering them for nearly two weeks as the terms of a peace agreement were painstakingly hammered out’” Greenspan writes.

He adds that since then, even as tensions between the countries “remain high, Israel and Egypt have not once come to blows.”

Carter’s time in the White House was marked by inflation, the energy crisis and hostages in Iran.

While some of the economic turmoil during Carter’s years in office were out of his control, it was used against him effectively in the 1980 race by Ronald Reagan – as was his boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics.

Boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics

Carter was also criticized for the boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics in 1980.

After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Carter delivered an ultimatum in his 1980 State of the Union address. “With Soviet invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow,” he declared.

The decision devastated athletes dreaming of Olympic gold and glory. Olympic historian David Wallechinsky tells WSB that he disagreed with Carter’s call. “My opinion now is exactly the same as it was in 1980,” Wallechinsky says. “It was a very bad decision and he was manipulating athletes for his own political purpose.”

Swimmer Rowdy Gaines recalls his times would have won five gold medals in 1980. He spent four more years training in order to compete in Los Angeles in 1984. “I wanted to be an Olympian,” he recalled years later.

Wallechinsky believes the boycott impacted Carter’s legacy, but it is a footnote to his presidency. “I don’t think it had any effect on his presidency or certainly not a negative one, because there were bigger issues involved,” he explains.

Ironically, local historians tell WSB that the boycott may have benefited Atlanta years later. It led to the creation of the Goodwill Games by Ted Turner, which some experts say was “instrumental” in Atlanta’s successful Olympic bid in 1990.

In retaliation, the Soviets boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It wasn’t until 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, that both teams competed together again in the summer Olympics.

The Soviets did not leave Afghanistan until 1989.

Jimmy Carter’s legacy

Carter may have had a challenging term in office, but in many ways America’s 39th president was a trail blazer before and after his time in the White House.

And for many, the real legacy of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner will likely be his work since leaving office.

A list of accomplishments include Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity and as a global ambassador for peace. He also became the world’s foremost expert on election oversight in countries that never had it before.

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WSB Consumer Expert Clark Howard recalls interning for then-Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter in 1974.

Howard eventually went off to college but on a visit back home to Atlanta, he was approached about leaving school to volunteer for the “Carter for President” campaign – Howard declined.

“I’m driving away [from the campaign headquarters on Peachtree Street] and I said to the friend who was with me, ‘can you believe they think that Jimmy Carter is going to be elected President?’ Shows what I knew,” Howard tells WSB.

What most impressed Clark was Mr. Carter’s life after the White House: “He’s lived his life since then probably doing more for more people, with more impact, than any ex-President in my lifetime,” Clark said.

As mentioned before, later in life, Carter became very involved with Habitat for Humanity, which has also been championed by Clark. “If he sees people talking and just hanging out, not working, he’ll say, ‘the house doesn’t get built with you watching it,’” Howard recalls.

Howard adds, “I can’t tell you how many thousands of homes in the United States and tens of thousands around the world because of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.”

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: An enduring love story

It’s a marriage that spanned nearly eight decades.

Growing up close-by in their hometown of Plains, Georgia, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter knew each for most of their lives.

A then-Rosalynn Smith was close friends with Jimmy’s younger sister Ruth.

“I spent a lotta time at that house, but he was always off at school,” Rosalynn Carter recalled during an interview in 2021. “He was so good to Ruth. He would write her letters, and she talked about him all the time. And she had his photograph on the wall in her bedroom. And I literally did fall in love with that photograph.”

It was that connection that eventually brought the two of them together to become the longest-married presidential couple in U.S. history.

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They began dating in 1945, while Jimmy Carter was home from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. After their first date, Carter reportedly told his mother that Rosalynn was the woman he was going to marry.

But Rosalynn did not accept his proposal at first. She explains that she told Carter she wanted to graduate from college first, as she had promised her father on his deathbed a few years earlier.

“But he was persistent,” Rosalynn added. The couple eventually exchanged vows on July 7, 1946 in their hometown of Plains.

Throughout their marriage, they would go from their family home to the Georgia Governor’s Mansion and eventually, the White House.

On his 75th birthday in 1999, Jimmy Carter said the most important decision he ever made in his life was “marrying Rosalynn.”

He added, “Rose did say, ‘OK,’ finally, and staying with me all this long has been the most wonderful thing in my life. It’s a full partnership.”

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Ms. Carter said finding common interests was important to the two of them. Still, she emphasized a caveat: “Each [person] should have some space. That’s really important.”

Jimmy Carter also said they made an effort to share as much as they possibly could: from bird watching to skiing to fly fishing, which they did in over a dozen countries.

The two read the Bible together each night. “We’ve done that for 60 years, probably,” the former president said during an interview in 2021. “When I’m overseas and Rose is at home, we know we’re reading the same biblical text, and even though we’re separated physically, it makes us think about the same scripture and admonition from God, direction from God before we go to sleep.

“So it helps a lot.”

The Carters said they also tried not to go to bed angry.

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When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the couple said they barely left their home. While many couples found that put a strain on their relationships, the Carters said it actually brought them closer together.

“Before that, we had not been together all that much – ordinary family travel and so forth,” Jimmy Carter said.

“It was just Jimmy and me,” Rosalynn Carter said. “And it was really wonderful.”

The Carters said as the years went on, their love for each other just grew stronger.

“For [76] years of marriage we’ve always gone deeper in our love for one another,” the former president said. “I think that’s a kind of extraordinary thing. Doesn’t happen to very many couples, but it certainly happened to us.”

The Associated Press and WSB-TV contributed to this article.

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