Former President Jimmy Carter has died at 100

Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, has died. He was 100 years old.

The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives.

“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” The Carter Center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family.

Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s.

“My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said.

Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia.

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford.

Carter governed amid Cold War pressures and turbulent oil markets. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. 

Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan.

After politics, the Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international champions of democracy, public health and human rights. The Carters were synonymous with Habitat for Humanity for decades in building hundreds of homes for the needy.

Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. 

The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously.

Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said, “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history."

James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career.



(AP Photo Carolyn Kaster)