Tributes have been paid to former US President Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday afternoon on the age of 100.
Carter died peacefully at his dwelling in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his household. He’s survived by his 4 kids, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. His spouse Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023 aged 96.
Born in 1924, Carter, a former peanut farmer, was the longest-serving president in US historical past and the primary Southern Baptist to be elected president of the US.
Earlier than coming into the White Home, he was the governor of Georgia, the place he advocated for racial and gender equality. In 1977, he turned the thirty ninth US president to serve one time period earlier than dropping to Ronald Reagan.
After leaving the White Home, he based the Carter Middle to advertise peace and democracy, profitable the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden stated: “After I take a look at Jimmy Carter, I see a person not only for our time, however all the time. A person who embodied probably the most primary human values that we will by no means let slip away. We are going to by no means once more see what he likes, we’d all do properly to attempt to be a bit of extra like Jimmy Carter.”
After leaving the White Home, Carter and his spouse spent many years volunteering with the Christian charity Habitat for Humanity. Its chief govt Jonathan Reckford stated the pair had had an “unbelievable influence”.
“We’re deeply saddened by the passing of President Carter and our prayers are with the Carter household,” he stated.
“President and Mrs. Carter started volunteering for Habitat for Humanity close to their dwelling in southwest Georgia greater than 40 years in the past and shortly introduced international consideration to the necessity for first rate and inexpensive housing.
“We’re grateful for the unbelievable influence the Carters have had on Habitat and the households who’ve benefited from their shining instance.
“The Carters put Habitat for Humanity on the map, and their legacy lives on in each household we serve all over the world.”
Throughout his lifetime, Carter wrote greater than 30 books, together with many with reference to religion and morality, comparable to The Blood of Abraham: Views on the Center East, A residing religion, Sources of Energy: Meditating on Scripture for Dwelling Religion, Our Endangered Values: America's Ethical Disaster, NIV Life Bible Classes: Private Reflections with Jimmy Carter, A Name to Motion: Ladies, Faith, Violence and Energy and Religion: A Path for All.
US President-elect Donald Trump stated: “Though I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I additionally realized that he actually liked and revered our nation and every part it stood for.
“He has labored arduous to make America a greater place, and I give him the utmost respect for that.
“He was a very good man and can in fact be tremendously missed. He was additionally very constant, far more than most presidents after he left the Oval Workplace. My deepest condolences from Melanie and myself to his fantastic household.”
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition stated he “touched numerous lives, providing hope the place there was despair and love the place there was indifference.”
“President Carter lived his religion and proved that humility, service and love are probably the most highly effective forces for change,” the assertion stated.
Carter was the primary US president to welcome a pope to the White Home when John Paul II visited in 1979.
He commonly led Sunday Faculty at Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains, Georgia and taught till 2015 when he was identified with most cancers.
He left the Southern Baptist denomination in 2000, one of many causes being its refusal to ordain girls.
“I'm accustomed to the verses they quoted about wives being topic to their husbands,” Carter stated on the time.
“For my part, this can be a twisting of the which means of Scripture. . . . I personally really feel that the Bible says that every one males are equal within the eyes of God. I personally imagine that ladies ought to play precisely the identical function in serving Christ within the church.”
Carter had shut ties to the late evangelist Billy Graham, serving to him set up his crusades and sometimes talking as a visitor speaker.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Affiliation (BGEA) paid tribute to Carter's “sturdy religion in God”.
It recalled one explicit event when Graham wanted somebody to assist him set up racially built-in gospel film nights earlier than his campaign to Georgia within the Nineteen Sixties. Carter “was the one man who had the center to be president,” Graham later stated.
Underneath Carter's management, completely different races sat facet by facet to observe a Gospel film collectively earlier than the campaign. Carter spoke in regards to the expertise throughout an look on the 1994 Billy Graham Campaign in Atlanta.
“After I went to the large church buildings, none of them would allow us to in,” he stated. “So we went to the basement of an deserted college constructing and had our built-in planning conferences there.
Graham's son Franklin Graham, who heads BGEA, stated Carter and his father “had a detailed relationship.”
“I do know his household would recognize your prayers,” he stated.
