Jimmy Carter dead at 100: Family remembers longest-living US president as ‘hero’ who ‘brought people together’

Carter survived his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, by a little more than a year. She passed away aged 96 in November 2023. He is survived by four children, Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, and 11 grandchildren and 14 grandchildren.

‘The world is our family because of the way he brought people together’

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son, according to the Carter Center. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

Weeks before Carter’s death, Jason, his grandson, said the former president was “experiencing the world as best he can” but was not awake every day. Jason said that his grandfather was recently able to talk and watch an Atlanta Braves game.

“I told him, I said: ‘Pawpaw, you know, when people ask me how you’re doing I say, ‘honestly I don’t know,’” Jason, 48, told Southern Living. “And he kind of smiled and he said, ‘I don’t know, myself.’

“It was pretty sweet,” Jason added.

Carter defeated Republican Gerald Ford and was sworn in on January 20, 1977. He served one year before being swept aside by Ronald Reagan. However, in that short time, he did rack up triumphs like the historic Camp David peace accords, in which Israel and Egypt recognised each other’s governments officially. “Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood,” Carter once said.

Carter later ran for the Georgia Senate in 1962, and won, going on to streamline the state’s bureaucracy. He was widely considered a centrist reformer. He was also known for his humanitarian and charitable endeavors after leaving the White House, including his commitment to the Habitat for Humanity program, and the Carter Presidential Center.

Carter was handed the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” He made his final public appearances at memorial and funeral services for his late wife, and was seen confined to a wheelchair at the time.