The Carter Center announced that public events will be held in Atlanta and Washington. After these events, a private burial will take place in Plains, according to the statement.
In recent years, Carter had environmental diseases, including melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain. In February 2023, Carter decided to forgo treatment and receive only hospice care. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, whom he had been married to since 1946, died on November 19, 2023, at the age of 96.
Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, became president in January 1977, defeating the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. His single-term presidency was marked by the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978 between Israel and Egypt, which brought some stability to the Middle East.
Carter ran for re-election in 1980, but voters supported the Republican contender Ronald Reagan, a former actor and governor of California.
Carter lived longer than any other US president and, after leaving the White House, earned a reputation as a committed humanitarian, writes Reuters. He was considered the best of the former presidents, although he was unpopular during his term. After leaving the presidency, he worked energetically on humanitarian issues for decades. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his "tireless efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, promote democracy and human rights, and foster economic and social development."
Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A visit in 1994 helped defuse a nuclear crisis: President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resuming dialogue with the United States. This led to a deal in which North Korea promised not to restart its nuclear reactor and not to reprocess spent fuel in exchange for aid.
In 2010, Carter secured the release of an American sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.
In 2019, Carter questioned the legitimacy of Republican Donald Trump as president, stating that "he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." In response, Trump called Carter a "terrible president."
Carter wrote more than two dozen books—from presidential memoirs to children's books and poetry, as well as works on religious faith and diplomacy. His book "Faith: A Journey for All" was published in 2018.
Photo: Reuters