Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, died at the age of 100

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and a former peanut farmer whose vision of a “competent and compassionate” government catapulted him to the White House, died on Sunday, The Carter Center confirmed. He was 100.

The news was first reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, shortly before the late president’s nonprofit organization, the Carter Center, made an announcement on X.

“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the organization’s post said.

Carter’s death follows the death of his wife Rosalynn on November 19, 2023. She died at the age of 96 with her family by her side at the Carter Home in Plains, just days after being admitted to hospice care.

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Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. (Diana Walker/Getty Images)

The late former president himself entered hospice care in February 2023. Carter survived for years after having a “small mass” removed from his liver in early August 2015 and later that month announcing he had liver cancer that had spread throughout his body.

The Carter family had a history of cancer and the former president lost his father, brother and two sisters to pancreatic cancer. His mother had breast cancer, which later spread to the pancreas.

Jason Carter, Carter’s grandson, said in May that he believed the former president had “reached the end of his life’s journey.” But the former president held out much longer.

The mild-mannered leader with the typical Georgian accent saw his only term in the Oval Office marred by an economic downturn at home and a hostage crisis abroad.

His post-presidency life was marked by a clearly visible commitment to service but also by a series of sometimes controversial moves as he continued to become involved in foreign policy, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carter met with the terror group’s leadership and Palestinian representative Hamas in 2009 and 2015. He rebuked Israel for its operations against Hamas in 2014 and said there was “no justification in the world for what Israel is doing.”

President Jimmy Carter with his wife Rosalynn Carter (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group)

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in 1924 in Plains, a farming town. Carter’s father was a farmer, a background that instilled in him a love of the land – and the workers and underclass who cultivated it – that would stay with him throughout his personal and professional life.

But Carter initially sought a path outside the dirt of Plains and, after attending the U.S. Naval Academy, served as a submariner in the postwar Navy, eventually reaching the rank of lieutenant.

Carter married Rosalynn Smith, also a Plains native, in 1946, the same year he graduated from the academy.

After the death of Carter’s father in 1953, Carter resigned from the Navy and returned to his and Rosalynn’s roots in Plains. Carter took charge of the family farm while Rosalynn ran an agricultural supply business in their small Georgia town.

It wasn’t long, however, before Carter left the farm fields behind him again, this time embarking on a career in politics that would earn him the highest office in the land in just 14 years.

Carter won election to the Georgia Senate in 1962 and, after a failed gubernatorial bid in 1966, became governor of the state in 1971.

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Carter emerged as a leader of the national Democratic Party and won the 1976 presidential election against President Gerald Ford, capitalizing on a wave of popular discontent with former President Richard Nixon—and the pardon Ford had granted Nixon.

During his time in the White House, Carter established extensive diplomatic relations with China and led negotiations for a nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union. Domestically, he led several conservation efforts and showed the same love of nature as president as he had as a young farmer in Plains.

Then-Vice President Walter Mondale and then-Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill listen as President Jimmy Carter delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the Capitol on January 23, 1980. (Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

His greatest personal achievements include the Panama Canal Treaties and the Camp David Accords, which brought peace between Egypt and Israel.

“We focused on peace,” he told The Washington Post in 2014. “We never fired a bullet or dropped a bomb on anyone.”

But maintaining peace wasn’t always easy, and a perceived lack of fortitude in dealing with bad actors likely contributed to his lopsided defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The last 14 months of his presidency were marked by the hostage crisis in Iran. After the country’s revolution, the new government took 52 American hostages. Carter was never able to repatriate the imprisoned Americans or negotiate their release. In an apparent snub, Iran finally released the 52 people after holding them for 444 days – the same day Carter left office.

Jimmy Carter signs the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 on November 9, 1977. (Hum Images/Universal Images Group)

And although Carter created the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, two government bureaucracies that have since become popular Republican targets, a nationwide energy crisis also marred his time in office. Footage of gas pipelines and high gas prices is a crucial part of almost every documentary or discussion of the late 1970s.

The domestic and foreign policy problems led Senator Ted Kennedy to take the rare step of challenging Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. Although Carter survived that battle, albeit narrowly, he was not so lucky in November 1980, when Reagan won 44 states and the presidency.

From left to right: Former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. (HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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After leaving the White House, Carter, who had authored 28 books, was named distinguished professor at Emory University in Atlanta and founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization focused on national and international public policy. Carter told the Associated Press that he had the “best times” of his life after founding the organization in 1982.

“This beautiful place on Earth that has set moral and ethical standards that exemplify what a superpower like America should be,” Carter said of the center in October.

Carter recalled the handicrafts of his youth in Plains and was often seen volunteering and fundraising for Habitat for Humanity, where he helped build homes for those in need.

Former President Jimmy Carter is pictured before the game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Cincinnati Bengals at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on September 30, 2018 in Atlanta. (Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Carter was also a member of The Elders, a group of independent global leaders no longer active in politics whose ranks once included South African President Nelson Mandela, Irish President Mary Robinson and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

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In his free time, Carter enjoyed fishing, running and working. A deeply religious man, he served as a deacon at the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains.

Carter is survived by his four children, his 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.