Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday afternoon on the age of 100.
The Carter Center confirmed that Carter died peacefully and surrounded by his household at his residence in Plains, Georgia. At 100, Carter was the longest-living president in U.S. history.
A lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, he was the primary president to welcome a Super Bowl champion to the White House (the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1980, who visited alongside the World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates).
Carter additionally was president in 1980 when he introduced that the United States would boycott the Olympic Summer Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. More than 60 nations finally boycotted the Games, together with West Germany, Japan and China. Writing in his 2010 e-book, “White House Diary,” Carter noticed that in hindsight, with respect to the U.S. group, “considered one of my most troublesome selections was supporting the boycott of the Summer Olympics.”
In his presidential memoir, “Keeping Faith,” Carter additionally mentioned the selection to not ship a U.S. group to Moscow. The boycott of the Moscow Olympics led to a retaliatory Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics that included greater than a dozen nations.
“For the Soviet Union, the Moscow Olympics was way more than a sporting occasion,” Carter wrote. “They noticed it as a triumph for communism and a vivid demonstration to different nations of the world that the Soviets represented the true spirit of the traditional Olympics.”
After the boycott was formalized with a vote by the U.S. Olympic Committee, Carter invited the whole American group to the White House, the place every athlete bought a quick handshake, posed for an image with the president, and obtained the Congressional Gold Medal.
In a press release from the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, proprietor Arthur Blank mentioned he was “deeply saddened by the lack of [his] pricey pal and position mannequin, President Jimmy Carter.”
“He was an awesome American, a proud Georgian and an inspirational international humanitarian,” Blank mentioned within the assertion.
A press release on the passing of President Jimmy Carter from Arthur M. Blank pic.twitter.com/7EYDeN15NS
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) December 29, 2024
Carter (born James Earl Carter Jr.) served one time period as U.S. president, from 1977 to 1981. He lived longer after leaving workplace than some other earlier U.S. president, and his legacy is famous by his post-presidency work.
He based The Carter Center in 1982, a nonprofit, nonpartisan heart centered on problems with public coverage. Through the middle, he labored as an advocate for democracy, human rights, illness prevention and battle decision and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter additionally partnered with Habitat for Humanity for greater than 30 years.
Carter, who returned to his residence state of Georgia after leaving the presidency, attended quite a few Braves video games, together with the ultimate recreation at Turner Field in October 2016, and was caught on the kiss cam along with his longtime spouse, Rosalynn, on multiple event.
“President Carter was a testomony to one of the best America, and Georgia, can produce,” the Braves said in a statement. “He served each his nation and residential state with honor his complete life. While the world knew him as a exceptional humanitarian and peacemaker, we knew him as a devoted Braves fan and we are going to miss having him within the stands cheering on his Braves.”
Among his different sports-related actions, Carter was a member of the cross nation group throughout his time on the Naval Academy and was additionally a tennis, observe and basketball participant in highschool. He was additionally an avid softball participant.
Carter grew up in Plains, Georgia, and served within the Navy for seven years earlier than returning to his residence state to take over his household’s peanut farm. Carter was a Georgia senator and governor within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s earlier than being elected president. He was identified with most cancers in August 2015 however introduced in early 2016 that he not wanted therapy.
Carter entered hospice care in February 2023; the Carter Center mentioned that within the wake of a sequence of quick hospital stays he “determined to spend his remaining time at residence along with his household and obtain hospice care as an alternative of extra medical intervention.”
Carter married his spouse, Rosalynn, in 1946. She died on Nov. 19, 2023, on the age of 96. They are survived by their three sons and a daughter, in addition to a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
