A week of tributes to former President Jimmy Carter will conclude Thursday with a solemn state funeral in Washington. The funeral will bring together all five of America’s living presidents, who will temporarily lay down their partisan swords and bid farewell to their own president.
Mr. Carter, who has been at the Capitol for the past two days, will be brought to the Washington National Cathedral at 10 a.m. for a service that will include all the rituals of a state farewell. He will then return to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, to be buried outside the modest ranch home where he lived most of his life and where he died last week.
This memorial ceremony symbolizes the pinnacle of honor for the 39th President of the United States, who led the turbulent era from 1977 to 1981 and worked to heal the nation after overcoming the trauma of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. President Biden is scheduled to deliver a eulogy. The same goes for Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, and Stuart E. Eizenstat, Carter’s longtime friend and White House domestic adviser.
The eulogies written by former President Gerald R. Ford and former Vice President Walter F. Mondale before their deaths were read by their sons, Steven Ford and Ted Mondale. It works. Mr. Carter defeated Mr. Ford in the 1976 election, but they later became friends, and Mr. Mondale was his close partner for four years in the White House.
There will also be readings by Jason Carter and another grandson, Joshua Carter, and a homily by Andrew Young, a civil rights activist who served as Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations. Among the music, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood will sing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump are also expected to attend the service, marking the first gathering of the so-called Presidents Club since Trump’s election. In November. The group is expected to gather again for his inauguration ceremony just 11 days later.
President Trump will be unusual among presidents who have viewed him as a dangerous force and, in some cases, harshly criticized him. Even President Bush, the only Republican in the group, wrote for other candidates rather than voting for President Trump.
Mr. Trump has no speaking role and is not a favorite of the Carter family. He has disparaged Mr. Carter regularly over the years, especially during last year’s campaign when Mr. Trump used the former president to attack Mr. Biden. After Carter’s death, Trump offered a few words of grace but did not hesitate to rebuke the former president for his decision to hand over control of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1977.
President Biden, who may be the closest living president to President Carter, declared Thursday a national day of mourning and suspended all but essential business of the federal government while flags were flown at half-staff. Mr. Carter’s casket will be moved from the cathedral to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, for its final flight on the presidential aircraft used as Air Force One.
After a final private service at Maranatha Baptist Church in the Plains, where Mr. Carter taught Sunday school into his 90s, the motorcade carrying the casket will make its final trip through the Plains to Mr. Carter’s home.
After a Navy jet conducts a missing persons formation flyover, Mr. Carter will be buried in the family cemetery next to his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, who died in late 2023.
