Jimmy Carter, who considered himself an outsider even as he sat in the Oval Office as the 39th U.S. president, will be honored Thursday with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown.
President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter’s 1976 campaign, will eulogize his fellow Democrat 11 days before he leaves office. All of Carter’s living successors are expected to attend the Washington funeral, including President-elect Donald Trump, who paid his respects before Carter’s casket Wednesday in the Capitol Rotunda.
The rare gathering of commanders in chief offers an unusual moment of comity for the nation in a factionalized, hyper-partisan era. Days of formal ceremonies and remembrances from political leaders, business titans and rank-and-file citizens have honored Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, for decency and using a prodigious work ethic to do more than obtain political power.
“He set a very high bar for presidents, how you can use voice and leadership for causes,” said Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder whose foundation funded Carter’s work to eliminate treatable diseases like the Guinea worm. Gates spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday shortly before flying to Washington for the funeral.
“Whatever prestige and resources you are lucky enough to have, ideally you can take those and take an even broader societal view in your post private sector career,” Gates said.
Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., compared the two Georgians and Nobel Peace Prize winners.
