MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former US President Jimmy Carter dies aged 100

Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States

Former US President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. (1977-1981) died Sunday in the State of Georgia, The Carter Center confirmed on social media. He was 100. He had been in hospice care in Plains, Georgia, since February 2023. Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96.

Last year, it was announced that he was fighting an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancer. Fellow Democrat and incumbent President Joseph Biden ordered a state funeral for the longest-lived head of State.

A US Naval Academy graduate and outspoken civil rights advocate, Carter served as a state senator and governor before defeating incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 elections by 50.1% to 48% of the vote, translating into a 297-240 advantage at the Electoral College. In 1980, he lost in a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan, gaining just 49 electoral votes to Reagan's 489. He had been born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Ga., to a nurse mother and a businessman and farmer father.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president's son, in a statement released by The Carter Center. “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,” he added.

President Carter will be forever remembered for events such as The Camp David Accords he brokered in 1978 between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, and the establishment of diplomatic ties between his country and China, among other events. In June 1979, he and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) agreement, which was never ratified by Congress following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year. In addition, he paved the way for the handover of the Panama Canal in 1999, which President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to reverse.

After leaving the White House, he founded The Carter Center in 1982, which focused on democracy and human rights, and for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.