Jimmy Carter spent just four years in the White House, but the past 40 leading the Carter Center, a nonprofit he and his wife Rosalynn — who passed away in Nov. 2023 — founded in 1982 to keep pushing their political vision.
Why it matters: The nonprofit not only has been "waging peace" across the world, as Carter often said, it rebuilt his public image following his 1980 landslide election loss.
Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, which ranks U.S. presidents in numerous categories, tells Axios that Carter ranked 13th for integrity in 1982, but by 2022 had risen to No. 2. That's behind only Abraham Lincoln.
"[That] certainly owes to his enhanced standing post-presidency," Levy said.
The big picture: The Carter Center's work aims to promote human rights, reduce illnesses and support democracy in places where it is endangered.
"If the World Bank or Harvard University or whoever is adequately taking care of a problem, we don't get involved," Carter told The Guardian in 2011. "We only try to fill vacuums where people don't want to do anything,"
Details: The center's attention to the "neglected" and painful tropical Guinea worm disease helped drive cases from 3.5 million in 1986 to 13 in 2022.
In 1994, Carter became the first U.S. president — former or sitting — to visit North Korea, a controversial trip that defused an immediate crisis.
The former president won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for "decades of untiring effort" to promote democracy, human rights and peaceful solutions to conflict.
Rosalynn Carter spearheaded the center's mental health program, which has trained clinicians and journalists, building on the work she did as First Lady.
Plus, the center played a vital role in election integrity worldwide.
It has sent observers to more than 100 elections since 1989, largely in South America, Asia and Africa.
Flashback: Well before the Carter Center monitored a single election, the novice politician Jimmy fought voter fraud.
In 1962 — in his first state Senate race — local political boss Joe Hurst favored Carter's opponent and orchestrated voter fraud in the election.
Yes, but: Carter challenged the election results and personally gathered affidavits from voters across the county. After a judge reviewed the evidence, Carter won a new write-in election.
More recently, the Carter Center turned its focus to U.S. elections, including Carter's home state Georgia, following the torrent of false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
The center's bipartisan efforts continued in 2022 and 2024.
Its overall goal is to promote nonpartisan citizen observation, spread accurate information and advocate for policy change.
By the numbers: The Carter Center's 2023 operating budget ran around $167 million, plus some $200 million from in-kind donations, mainly medicine for fighting a number of tropical diseases.
For fundraising events, Carter liked to contribute his handcrafts, including wine and oil paintings. A cedar chest made by the former president sold for $1.25 million at a 2019 donor auction.
He called woodworking therapeutic. "A stabilizing force in my life – a total rest for my mind.”
What's next? When Carter announced in 2015 that liver cancer had spread to his brain, he said that the center was "well prepared to continue on."
His eldest grandson, Jason Carter, has been board chair since then.
In 1976, one of the first presidential endorsements that then-Gov. Jimmy Carter got from an elected official outside of Georgia came from a young Sen. Joe Biden.
Why it matters: Biden and Carter, who died on Sunday at age 100, saw in each other a kindred spirit and political ally, and they maintained a long friendship in the decades since.
Zoom in: The two Democrats bonded over always being "underestimated" and not being members of the Washington "establishment," former top Carter advisor Gerald Rafshoon told Axios in an interview last year.
Plus, Rafshoon said, "you can't pigeonhole either one of them as being conservative or liberal. They're moderates, at least in my opinion. They see eye-to-eye on things."
The big picture: While at times Republicans have sought to compare President Biden's term to former President Carter's given their fights against inflation, what's clear is that the two men have been enduring friends.
In an endorsement message for Biden in 2020, Carter called him his "first and most effective supporter in the Senate" and said "my loyal and dedicated friend."
Carter phoned Biden the day before his 2021 inauguration to wish him well, as he wasn't able to make the trip to Washington.
What he's saying: In a video tribute to Carter in the 2021 documentary "Carterland," Biden recalled traveling to Wisconsin in 1976 to make his endorsement.
"Some of my colleagues in the Senate thought it was youthful exuberance on my part. Well I was exuberant," Biden recalled.
"As I said then: 'Jimmy's not just a bright smile. He can win and he can appeal to more segments of the population than any other person.'"
"All those years ago, Governor Carter proved me right. And in the years since, President Carter did a lot more than that. He showed us throughout his entire life what it means to be a public servant. With emphasis on the word servant."
After promising to visit Carter in early 2021, Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Plains, Georgia, in April of that year and spent an hour with the Carters at their home.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that former President Carter has died. It has also been been corrected to reflect that then-Sen. Biden was not the first person to endorse Carter for president in 1976.
Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter died at age 100 on Sunday afternoon,the Carter Center said.
The big picture: President Joe Biden appointed Jan. 9 as a national day of mourning for Carter and U.S. flags will fly at half-staff on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels for 30 days as per federal protocols, according to a Sunday night White House statement.
Biden said in a statement earlier Sunday that he will order a full state funeral for Carter, though no additional information was immediately announced.
Zoom in: As the nation's 39th president, Carter said he tried to forge a "competent and compassionate" U.S. government.
A former peanut farmer and U.S. Navy nuclear physicist, Carter led a life of service that started well before his first elected office on the Sumter County, Georgia, Board of Education — and endured long after his presidency.
He has often been called the "nation's greatest former president" for the humanitarian work he conducted in his more than four decades after Washington.
Carter, the nation's longest-living former president and first to reach triple digits, began receiving hospice care at home in February 2023 after a series of short hospital stays, the Carter Center announced at the time.
Driving the news: "Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family," per a statement.
Carter's son, Chip Carter, said in the statement that his father "was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love."
"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," Chip Carter said.
The Carter Center said that there will be observances held in both Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Flashback: Carter's wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died in November 2023 at the age of 96. The former first lady, a lifelong mental health advocate, had been diagnosed with dementia earlier in the yearand entered hospice days before her death.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, first gentleman Doug Emhoff, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the Atlanta service.
All living former first ladies — Melania Trump, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush — were also there.
Carter greets people as he leaves after the funeral service for Rosalynn Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church on Nov. 29, 2023, in Plains, Ga. Photo: Alex Brandon/Pool/Getty Images
Looking back on Carter’s life
Carter was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains at a hospital where his mother worked as a nurse. He was the first future president born in a hospital.
Carter, the oldest of four, grew up picking peanuts on his family's farm. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, becoming the first future president to graduate from the academy.
That same year he married Rosalynn, a fellow Plains native who had known Carter her entire life.
Carter served in Norfolk, Virginia, and Hawai’i beforejoining the Navy's nuclear submarine program in Schenectady, New York, as a nuclear physicist. When his father died in 1953, Carter resigned to run the family's farms and seed and supply company with Rosalynn — against her wishes.
Following a stint on his local Sumter County Board of Education, Carter ran for the Georgia State Senate in 1962. While he initially lost in the Democratic primary, he successfully proved his opponent had won based on voter fraud. A judge threw out the results, and Carter held the office for two terms.
After a failed gubernatorial campaign in 1966, Carter was elected governor of Georgia in 1970. Whilehiscampaign sought the support of segregationists, his inaugural address shocked many when he declared "the time for discrimination is over." His administration emphasized ecology, efficiency in government and the removal of racial barriers.
The Carters at an inaugural ball in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 1977. The two were married for 77 years. Photo: Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images
Carter's presidential term
Though largely unknown in national politics, Carter announced his candidacy for president in December 1974 and accepted the Democratic nomination in July 1976. (An Atlanta Constitution editorial declared: "Jimmy Carter is running for what!?")
On Nov. 2, 1976 — during the country's bicentennial year — Carter and his running mate, Walter Mondaledefeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford.
Carter's presidential victories included arranging the Camp David Accords that established a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, the ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, and the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.
Under his administration, 8 million jobs were created and the budget deficit decreased. He championed environmental and renewable energy policies, had solar panels installed on the White House, protected more than 100 million acres of land in Alaska, and signed the Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund" hazardous waste cleanup program into law.
Carter championed industry deregulation including aviation, transportation and telecommunications, established the Education Department and appointed record numbers of women and people of color to government positions.
His term was marred by rising energy costs, climbing inflation and interest rates, and a struggle to negotiate the release of52 Americans held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
In 2023, the New York Times confirmed that in 1980, allies of Carter's political opponent, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, secretly urged Iran not to release the hostages until after the election — something Carter allies had long suspected. (The hostages were released minutes after Reagan's inauguration in 1981.)
What he said: Carter often recalled how proud he was to have kept the U.S. out of war for his four years in office.
"We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals," he told The Guardian in 2011.
Carter in his hometown of Plains, Ga., following a press conference about receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Photo: Steve Schaefer/AFP via Getty Images
Post-presidency
After his defeat to Reagan in 1980, the Carters returned to Plains and the family peanut business, which had been run into debt while in a blind trust during his presidency.
In 1982, the Carters founded the Atlanta-based Carter Center — which today houses his presidential library and an active, influential nongovernmental organization focused on "waging peace, fighting disease and building hope."
The center has undertaken a broad range of global programs, including conflict negotiation, election monitoring, and funding treatments to eradicate diseases such as river blindness and Guinea worm.
Carter was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to international conflicts and advance democracy and human rights.
From the end of his presidency until 2020, Carter regularly taught Sunday school at his home Baptist church, often with hundreds of people lining up overnight to attend.
Since 1984,he and Rosalynn remained devoted to one of their favorite causes: volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, which builds and restores homes for individuals and families in need.
In March 2019, at 94 years and 172 days, he became the longest-living former president in U.S. history. He and Rosalynn attended every presidential inauguration since his own in 1977 until 2021.
The Bidens visited the Carters in April 2021. Biden and Carter built a long-standing friendship over decades. (In 1976, the first presidential endorsement that then-Gov. Carter got from an elected official outside of Georgia came from a young Sen. Biden.)
Weeks after his 100th birthday, Carter cast a mail ballot for Harris in the 2024 election.
Carter leaves behind four children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip), Donnel Jeffery (Jeff), and Amy — and more than two dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
