(AFP) – Mourners began paying their respects to Jimmy Carter on Saturday, as a carefully choreographed six-day farewell for America’s longest-lived president got underway. US flags have been flying at half-staff around the country since Carter died on December 29 at age 100 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
The procession got underway when US Secret Service agents from his current and former protective details carried his flag-draped casket to a hearse for a tour through Plains. Crowds gathered along the roadside to say their goodbyes, with many waving small American flags, snapping photographs, or saluting as the motorcade rolled slowly past. The black hearse bearing his remains paused at Carter’s boyhood family peanut farm, where a bell was rung 39 times in honor of America’s 39th president. Staff of the National Park Service, which operates the farm, stood in somber, silent tribute.
“He was a man that didn’t walk around proud, he was an everyday normal person,” William Brown, 71, told AFP while waiting for the motorcade in Plains. “We’re going to miss him.” Later Saturday, Carter’s body was set to be driven to Atlanta for a brief stop and moment of silence at the Georgia State Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator before becoming governor. From there, he will be escorted to the Carter Presidential Center where he will lie in repose from 7:00 pm on Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) to 6:00 am Tuesday to allow the public to pay their respects.
Later that morning, Carter’s remains will be flown from a military base in Georgia to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington on a US Air Force plane dubbed Special Air Mission 39. A motorcade will then transport the body of the former commander-in-chief to the US Navy Memorial, several blocks from the White House. Carter, who graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 and served on submarines, will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for a funeral procession to the US Capitol.
Military pallbearers will carry his flag-draped casket to the Capitol rotunda where his body will lie in state, surrounded by a guard of honor of service members, until 7:00 am Thursday. Carter will be the 13th former US president to lie in state in the Capitol. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in 1865, was the first.
A national funeral service is to be held Thursday at the National Cathedral, an Episcopal church in Washington which also hosted state funerals for former presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Current President Joe Biden is to deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat, who served in the White House from 1977 to 1981. All four living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump — are expected to attend.
Biden has declared Thursday a national day of mourning, with federal government offices to be closed for the day. He has also ordered flags to half-staff for 30 days as is customary, which means that will be the case during Trump’s January 20 inauguration. That drew the ire of the president-elect, who took to Truth Social to say “no American can be happy” about having flags raised only halfway when he takes office.
Following the cathedral service, Carter’s remains will be flown back to Georgia for a private funeral service at the Baptist church in Plains where Carter taught Sunday school. A final motorcade through his hometown will bring Carter to a burial plot at his residence. US Navy jets will conduct a flyover in his honor before he is laid to rest alongside Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years who died in 2023 at age 96.
– Alex WROBLEWSKI with Chris LEFKOW in Washington
© 2024 AFP
