‘God bless you, Jimmy Carter’: Ex-president’s funeral provides rare moment of unity

Washington: It was a bipartisan moment of mourning and a celebration of a humble life lived in unyielding service.

Eleven days after he passed away in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, former US president Jimmy Carter was honoured with a funeral in Washington’s National Cathedral, where America’s five living presidents gathered to say goodbye to the peanut farmer-turned-politician.

President Joe Biden (top left) watches pallbearers carry Jimmy Carter’s casket on Thursday.Credit: AP

In a church filled with all of Carter’s living successors – including President-elect Donald Trump, who shared a rare laugh with Barack Obama before the service began – President Joe Biden summed up Carter with one repeated word: “Character, character, character.”

“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me … that strength of character is more than title of the power we hold,” Biden said alongside guests including Prince Edward, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

“It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect; that everyone – and I mean everyone – deserves an even shot. We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbour, and to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power.”

It was a fitting tribute from Biden, the first sitting senator to endorse Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign and whose time in office has striking parallels to America’s 39th president.

Former president Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump at the service.Credit: Bloomberg

Both were political underdogs when they entered the White House. Both are considered decent men who devoted their lives to public service. And both were ousted after only one term – undone, to a large extent, by inflationary pressures and the perception of US weakness abroad.

But Carter, as Biden told the crowd, was also a man of many achievements: the white Southern Baptist who advocated for civil rights; a decorated navy veteran who brokered peace; a nuclear engineer who led nuclear non-proliferation efforts; the hardworking farmer who championed conservation and clean energy.

“To young people, to anyone in search of meaning and purpose: study the power of Jimmy’s example,” Biden said in his eulogy.

The 2½-hour funeral capped off an almost weeklong series of tributes that began in Plains, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died last month at the age of 100.

Formalities began last Saturday when a motorcade accompanying Carter travelled from his childhood home and family farm before moving on to the Carter Presidential Centre, where he lay in repose until Tuesday morning.

The remains of the late president were then brought to Washington, DC, where he lay in state at the US Capitol Building, and where long lines of mourners waited hours in freezing conditions this week to file past his flag-draped casket in the Capitol Rotunda.

Among them was military veteran Dianne Meyers, who travelled from Minnesota to pay her respects.

Jimmy Carter in 2002.Credit: Getty Images

“He was my commander-in-chief when I served in Germany for three years, between 1976 and 1979,” she told this masthead.

“We were on the brink of war with Russia many times. He did not blink and managed to keep us at peace. I wanted to come and say thank you for keeping me safe.”

At 9am on Thursday (Friday AEDT), Carter’s casket was carried out of the rotunda to the sound of a 21-gun salute and made its way through snow-filled streets where onlookers stood on sidewalks, applauding and waving the American flag as he passed.

But perhaps the most notable sight was inside the cathedral, where the nation’s five living presidents put aside their political grievances – to some extent – as they bid Carter farewell.

Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania, was the first to be seated. After sharing a frosty handshake with his former vice president Mike Pence – the pair had a falling out over the 2021 Capitol attack when Trump’s supporters threatened to hang Pence for not blocking Biden’s 2020 election victory – Trump then spent several minutes chatting and laughing with Obama, the man at the centre of his racist birther conspiracy.

Trump (right) greets former vice president Mike Pence before the service.Credit: AP

Republican George W. Bush and his wife Laura entered soon after, followed by Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff. The four did not acknowledge the Trumps before the ceremony, but did so once the service was over.

Eulogies written by former president Gerald Ford and former vice president Walter Mondale before their deaths were read by their respective sons, Steven Ford and Ted Mondale.

Biden (front), Trump (right) and other dignitaries at the service.Credit: AP

Carter’s grandson Jason also gave a personal tribute to the man he called “Paw paw”, describing his grandfather as a “regular guy” whose life was “a love story – from the moment that he woke up until he laid his head”.

Eventually, Carter’s casket was carried out of the cathedral to make its way back to Plains, where the former president will be buried with his greatest love of all: Rosalyn Carter, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 77 years, who died in late 2023.

“I miss him, but I take solace in knowing that he and his beloved Rosalyn are reunited again,” Biden said. “God bless you, Jimmy Carter.”

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