Jimmy Carter, the nation’s 39th President and Nobel Prize winner, died Sunday, his family confirmed. He was 100 years old.
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Carter may be the nation’s first president to be remembered more for what he accomplished in the decades after leaving the Oval Office than for his actions while serving as America’s 39th president. People who lived through the 1970s and 80s certainly remember Carter’s fabled childhood on a peanut farm in south Georgia, ascending to the Naval Academy, the state Legislature and governor’s mansion.
In 1976, his straight talk and Christian values caught the imagination of a nation still reeling from the Vietnam War and the excesses of Lyndon Johnson, followed by the deceptions of Richard Nixon. Elected in 1978 as the first president from the Deep South since the Civil War, Carter presided over a turbulent period: double-digit inflation, an energy crisis, Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and American hostages taken in Iran. Yet historians acknowledge that despite a lack of national and international experience, Carter confronted these and other problems with steadiness, courage and idealism.
In his one term, Carter negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that remains in place today, secured a nuclear arms deal with Russia and was the first president to diplomatically recognize China. He also helped heal wounds of the Vietnam War by pardoning thousands of young men who had avoided military service in the 1960s and early 70s.
Carter believed that political leadership should function for the common good, not to please a set of organized constituencies, which often put him at odds with Congress and most of the Washington establishment.
After one term in office, voters strongly rejected Carter’s brutally honest outlook of America and the world in favor of Ronald Reagan’s telegenic optimism.
Carter left office, but never retired or gave up on his goal to make the world a better place. Over the next 38 years, he traveled the world championing human rights and democracy. His Carter Center became a leader in efforts to build world peace, a supporter of emerging democracies and an early leader in the fight against diseases conquered in the west but still ravaging the developing world.
Carter’s high-profile home building projects with Habitat for Humanity -- something he continued to do one week a year well into his 90s -- propelled that south Georgia charity into the international spotlight.
At age 95, having battled and beaten cancer, Carter still stayed active in his beloved hometown of Plains with his wife Rosalynn. He taught Sunday school two weeks a month to any and all who would come to his small Baptist church, sitting for a photo with every person who stayed through the church service.
He commuted monthly to Atlanta to work in the Carter Center and teach at Emory University. He also continued writing, authoring 32 books after he left office in 1981 -- several on his faith, some on politics or international issues, one book of poetry, a novel and a children’s story, illustrated by his daughter, Amy.
Our 39th president may not be remembered as one of America’s greatest presidents, but he was a humble man whose simple talk belied his wisdom -- a man who never forgot his values or his roots, even when to do so would have helped his political ambitions.
The Carter Center said it would give updates on ceremonies and tributes on its website.