Former President Jimmy Carter, who aspired to build a “lasting peace, built not on weapons of war but on international policies which reflect our own most precious values,” died Sunday in Plains, Georgia. He was 100.
Carter was born James Earl Carter Jr. on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, to James Earl Carter Sr. and Lillian Gordy Carter. He spent his childhood in Archery, Georgia, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946.
While in the U.S. Navy, Carter worked as a submariner and was later assigned to the nuclear submarine program in New York. His work focused on reactor technology and nuclear physics and he oversaw the pre-commissioning crew of the country’s second nuclear submarine.
Following his father’s death in 1953, Carter and his wife Rosalynn returned to his childhood home in Georgia where he had his first foray in politics serving on several community boards. Carter was then won a seat in Georgia’s state legislature before being elected the state’s 76th governor, an office he held from 1971 until 1975.
Then-Gov. Carter announced his bid for the presidency in December 1974. Alongside Vice President Walter Mondale, Carter was elected the country’s 39th president less than two years later. During his inaugural address, Carter pledged to make government “both competent and compassionate” and renew “our search for humility, mercy, and justice.”
His presidential library cites the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty and the establishment of U.S.-China relations as Carter’s major foreign policy achievements. Domestically, Carter and his administration supported energy, education and environmental reform, creating the cabinet-level Department of Energy and the modern Department of Education during his time in office.
Carter ran for re-election but lost to Ronald Reagan, though he stayed in the public eye after leaving office. He founded the human rights-focused Carter Center and later worked alongside several subsequent presidents and foreign leaders on peacekeeping, humanitarian and other diplomacy missions.
In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Camp David Accords — “itself a great enough achievement to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize,” the committee said — and other humanitarian work.
Carter was last seen on his 100th birthday. In a video published by the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, the former president was seen with family watching an F-18 Super Hornet flyover from Naval Air Station Oceana in honor of his centennial.
Carter also made a rare appearance out of hospice care in a wheelchair to honor former first lady and wife Rosalynn Carter at her funeral in February of 2023. She died on Nov. 19, 2023 at the age of 96.
