Jimmy Carter — philanthropist, humanitarian and the 39th President of the United States — has died, the Carter Center, a nonprofit group founded by the former president, confirmed Sunday. 

Carter, 100, had been in home hospice care in Georgia for nearly two years.

“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the 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.

As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying in a statement the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others.

Biden spoke later Sunday evening about Carter, calling it a “sad day” but one that “brings back an incredible amount of good memories.”

“I’ve been hanging out with Jimmy Carter for over 50 years,” Biden said in his remarks.

He recalled the former president being a comfort to him and his wife Jill when their son Beau died in 2015 of cancer. The president remarked how cancer was a common bond between their families, with Carter himself having cancer later in his life.

“Jimmy knew the ravages of the disease too well,” said Biden, who scheduled a state funeral for Carter on Jan. 9 at Washington’s National Cathedral.

Biden also declared Jan. 9 as a National Day of Mourning and ordered U.S. flags to fly at half-staff for 30 days from Sunday.

The Carter Center said there will also be a public observance in Atlanta followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia, his hometown.

Carter held a number of distinctions: He was both the oldest living and longest-lived president, he had the longest post-presidency, was the fourth-oldest living world leader, and had the longest marriage of any U.S. president to his beloved Rosalynn, lasting more than three-quarters of a century.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Carter's son, Chip, said in a statement. “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.”

Early life and career

Born in Plains in 1924 — he was the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital — Carter was the oldest child of Lillian Gordy Carter, a nurse, and James Carter Sr., a farmer and businessman.

Carter attended public school in Plains before attending the U.S. Naval Academy, where he met the love of his life, Eleanor Rosalynn Smith — the woman who eventually became the first lady of the United States, and his wife of more than three-quarters of a century.

"I thought he was the most handsome young man I had ever seen," Rosalynn, 95, wrote in her 1984 memoir, "First Lady from Plains.”

The two went on their first date in 1945, when he was at home from the academy and she had completed her first year at Georgia Southwestern College.

“She’s the girl I want to marry,” Carter told his mother after their first date — and one year later, they did, shortly after his graduation in 1946.

Carter rose to the rank of lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, serving as a submariner in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. He was selected for the nuclear submarine program and was assigned to do graduate work at Union College in Schenectady, New York, with the intention to work on the USS Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.

But after his father died in 1953, Carter resigned his commission to take over his family’s businesses in Georgia, including their now-iconic peanut farm.

From Plains to the governor’s mansion

Back in Plains, Carter became an influential leader in the community, even becoming a member of the school board in 1956 and later its chairman. Carter was elected a Georgia state senator in 1962 before seeking the nomination to serve as the state’s governor in 1966. 

Though Carter lost the Democratic primary to Lester Maddox, who would go on to win the general election, the race catapulted him to statewide prominence and helped him in 1970 when he successfully sought the governorship.

Carter, who was considered one of the progressive “New South Governors,” emphasized racial equality, among other issues. In his inaugural speech, he declared that “the time of racial discrimination is over.”

“No poor, rural, weak or Black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity for an education, a job or simple justice,” Carter continued.

As Georgia’s chief executive, Carter emphasized efficiency in government, reorganizing the state’s government to rein in bureaucracy. 

“Not only did we make possible the savings of millions of dollars in administrative costs, we made the whole operation much more efficient and much more responsive to the needs of the people,” Carter told The New York Times in 1976. “I'm proud, really very proud of that.”

Carter also drew nationwide attention for vetoing a plan to build a dam along Georgia’s Flint River, a groundbreaking decision at the time. Carter determined that the Army Corps of Engineers underestimated the environmental impact on the region, as well as the cost of the project. 

With Georgia’s constitution preventing him from seeking a second consecutive term, Carter had his sights set on a higher office: the White House.

The Carter administration

On Dec. 12, 1974, Carter announced he would seek the Democratic nomination to run for president in the 1976 presidential election. Carter was considered an underdog at first against candidates with stronger name recognition — including California Gov. Jerry Brown, Alabama Gov. Jerry Wallace and Ariona Rep. Mo Udall — but after strong performances in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, he built a strong coalition in Southern states and won the nomination. 

Choosing Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale as his running mate, Carter went on to challenge then-President Gerald Ford, the first unelected president to take office after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Carter ran as an outsider to Washington and a reformer, taking advantage of Ford’s unpopular pardon of Nixon in September 1974, as well as a poor economy and the fall of South Vietnam to win the 1976 presidential election — the first time in 44 years that an incumbent president was defeated.

On his first full day in office, Carter issued an unconditional pardon to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who evaded the draft for the Vietnam War. Veterans of the war and others disagreed with the pardon, while anti-war activists criticized the action for not going far enough, namely for not addressing deserters.

Carter also created two new Cabinet positions: the Secretary of Energy, after signing into law the the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 to address, in part, the energy crisis of the 1970s, and the Secretary of Education, following the establishment of the Department of Education, separating it from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. (The Department was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services.)

Taking office toward the latter part the Cold War, Carter notched a number of significant foreign policy accomplishments, including the negotiation of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, which led to the 1979 peace treaty between the two nations, making Egypt the first Arab country to formally recognize Israel. Carter also oversaw the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty with the Soviet Union.

But the SALT II treaty fell apart after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 — the terms treaty, while not ratified by either side, was respected until 1986 — and on Nov. 4, 1979, a foreign policy emergency took hold that gripped the last year of Carter’s presidency: the Iran Hostage Crisis.

A group of militarized Iranian college students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing the building and taking dozens of people hostage. While some hostages were released in the following weeks, the vast majority were held for 444 days — until Carter’s last day in office, Jan. 20, 1981.

The hostage crisis is considered by several experts as a major contributor to Carter’s electoral loss in 1980. Despite exerting economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran, and signed off on Operation Eagle Claw, a failed rescue operation that resulted in the deaths of eight American soldiers.

Domestically, Carter faced a number of issues, including the 1979 energy crisis and economic “stagflation,” with the U.S. economy experiencing low growth but high inflation. Though Carter was successful in adding nearly 8 million jobs by the end of his term and decreasing the budget deficit, his policies could not overcome the country’s perilous economic situation.

In 1979, Carter delivered a speech known as the “malaise” speech (despite never using the word in the speech), calling the issues the U.S. faced a “crisis of confidence.”  

“It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul of our national will,” Carter said. “We can see this crisis in the growing doubt of the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of unity and purpose as a Nation. The erosion of confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of the nation.”

Carter’s domestic and foreign policy issues left him with very low approval ratings and rendered him vulnerable in the 1980 presidential election. Carter faced a tough primary challenge from Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, an influential and popular lawmaker. 

Though Kennedy overcame Carter in several states, leading to an ugly, brokered 1980 Democratic National Convention, Carter emerged victorious. 

Enter Ronald Reagan: The 69-year-old former California governor defeated Carter in a landslide, winning 44 states and 489 electoral college votes, as well as a 9.7% margin in the popular vote.

Former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, in Plains, Ga., Nov. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)

After the presidency

Returning to Plains, Carter discovered that his family’s peanut farm, which he left in blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, was $1 million in debt after mismanagement.

“We thought we were going to lose everything,” Rosalynn told The Washington Post. 

Forced to sell the business, Carter began writing books as a source of income. A prolific author, Carter wrote numerous after leaving the White House, ranging from presidential memoirs to books about faith, and even a children’s book, “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer,” illustrated by his daughter, Amy.

In 1982, with Atlanta’s Emory University, the Carters founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization based “on a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering” seeking “to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health,” according to its mission statement on its website. 

The Carter Center has observed 125 elections in 40 countries since 1989, and has also mediated conflict in a number of countries, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, North Korea, Bosnia and Sudan. The center has also worked to advance human rights worldwide.

Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work with the Carter Center “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Carter stayed active in politics after leaving the White House, offering counsel to, and criticism of, his successors, but largely stayed out of the public spotlight. 

Until his death, he and Rosalynn still lived at 209 Woodland Drive, the modest ranch house they built together in the 1960s – the first and only house they have ever owned. The residence is part of Jimmy Carter National Historical Park – which also preserves his childhood home, school, and the railroad station that served as his campaign headquarters in 1976 – and will be converted to a museum after President Carter’s death.

Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023, was buried on the grounds of the house; President Carter intends to be buried there as well.

The Carters also have a long history with the charity Habitat for Humanity. Through their annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 events did not take place), the Carters have helped to build, renovate and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries alongside more than 104,000 volunteers through their annual work project, according to Habitat for Humanity.

Carter built homes in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and even participated in a Habitat event at 95 after suffering a fall in his home, which required stitches. 

“I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville and build houses,” Carter told a crowd of volunteers.

Carter’s staunch Christian faith — he taught Sunday school about twice a month at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains — led to his love of service with Habitat.

“Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope,” Carter said, adding: “One of the best ways to practice my faith as a Christian is to participate in Habitat every year.”

In 2017, the Carters attended Trump’s inauguration, making him the oldest president to attend a swearing-in, but did not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first time he missed the event since his own in 1977. Biden, a young Delaware senator and an ally to Carter during his time in the White House, visited him and Rosalynn in 2021 during a trip to Georgia to mark his 100th day in office. 

He appeared in a public service announcement in 2021 with former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush urging Americans to get vaccinated; the only living ex-president who did not participate was Donald Trump.

Carter penned an op-ed for The New York Times on the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to express dismay about political polarization and the threat to American democracy, and called for reforms to protect our elections.

“I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally — the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power — has become dangerously fragile at home,” Carter wrote. 

“Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss,” he warned. “Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late.”

Carter, who was nearly 10 months into home hospice care at the time, attended Rosalynn's funeral, watching the service from his wheelchair. All five living current and former first ladies attended, as well as President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton.

Carter is survived by his four children, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Corrections: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the date of Rosalynn Carter's death.

The Associated Press and Spectrum News' Ryan Chatelain contributed to this report.