America’s final salute to Jimmy Carter begins in home state of Georgia

America’s final salute for former President Jimmy Carter began Saturday with a solemn tribute to the 39th president outside his family’s farm as the old farm bell rang 39 times in his honor.

Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. He served in the U.S. Navy for seven years before working on the family farm and running for office in Georgia, winning the governorship in 1970. Carter, a Democrat, was elected to the White House in 1976 and served a single term. 

“We will have many opportunities to pay tribute to my grandfather,” said Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson and chair of the Carter Center, during a service in Atlanta.

In his life post-presidency, Carter continued to pursue his passion for humanitarian work and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his decades of efforts in advancing international peace, democracy and human rights.

“For us, in my family, we just knew him as a grandfather … and we’ve shared him with the country and the world in certain ways,” Jason Carter, his grandson and chair of the Carter Center’s board, told “CBS Mornings” on Friday. “I think people really connect with him because he was always just a regular guy.”

“This is somebody from a small town in south Georgia who was a peanut farmer who ultimately became the president of the United States. It’s a pretty remarkable American story,” he added.

The former president’s six-day state funeral started in Americus at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, where current and former Secret Service agents who protected the late president loaded his remains into a black hearse and walked alongside as it rolled off the campus toward Plains.

In Plains, where Carter was born on Oct. 1, 1924, and lived most of his life, mourners lined the main street. 

“We want to pay our respects,” 12-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock, who was born more than three decades after Carter left the White House in 1981, told the Associated Press. “He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish.”

The motorcade paused briefly in front of the farm where he grew up, and the National Park Service rang a bell 39 times in his honor, in recognition of his status as the nation’s 39th president.

The motorcade traveled to the state capitol in Atlanta, where there was a moment of silence led by Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens, members of the Georgia Legislature and Georgia State Patrol Troopers.

During a service at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Jason Carter not only paid tribute to his grandfather, but to the people who worked with him to push his message of service and help to others beyond U.S. borders.

“This building is full of his life…His spirit fills this place,” he said. “The reason his spirit fills this place is because of the people in this room.”

He added: “You continue the vibrant living legacy of what is my grandfather’s life’s work.”

The president’s son, James “Chip” Carter, paid tribute to his late father and mother, Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023.

“The two of them together changed the world,” he said, his voice cracking. “It was an amazing thing to watch from so close.” 

The service on Saturday also included a psalm reading by Tony Lowden, the former president’s personal pastor, a prayer by Bernstine Hollis, a longtime friend and employee at the Carter Center, as well as music by the Morehouse College Glee Club.

Carter’s body will lie in repose at the Carter Center until 6 a.m. on Tuesday. A departure ceremony will be held, and then his casket will be transported to Washington, D.C., where he will be transferred to a hearse with an arrival ceremony. The motorcade will stop at the U.S. Navy Memorial and then the casket will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson with ceremony.

The funeral procession will then head to the U.S. Capitol, where military bearers will carry the casket to the Rotunda. Members of Congress can pay their respects during a ceremony, and then Carter will lie in state while the military maintains a guard of honor. Members of the public will have an opportunity to pay their respects.

Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda until Thursday when there will be a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral. His remains will then be transferred back to Georgia for a private funeral service at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where Carter taught Sunday school for many years.

Following the private funeral, there will be a motorcade through Plains to his home, where he is set to be buried. The U.S. Navy will conduct a missing man formation flyover to honor him, and then there will be a private burial. 

He will be laid to rest beside Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years.