In 1998, at the ripe age of 74, former President Jimmy Carter put his thoughts on aging to paper.
In his book from the same year, Carter wrote, “The virtues of growing older include the blessings that come to us as we grow older and the things we have to offer that may be of benefit to others.'' It includes both.”
It turns out that Carter, who hit 100 on Tuesday, still had a lot more to offer. A year after the publication of this book, he would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won three Grammy Awards, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. A Navy submarine and a fish species (the bluegrass darter with the scientific name “Etheostoma jimmycarter”) were named in his honor.
The current 39th president, who served from 1977 to 1981, is the first former commander-in-chief to reach the milestone of the century.
When James Earl Carter Jr. was born in 1924 in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, the United States still had 48 states. Wheaties cereal was just starting to appear on grocery store shelves, President Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated, and Babe Ruth was on his way to becoming MLB's American League batting champion.
“My family lived in relative isolation in a rural community, with no electricity or running water in our home until I was 14,” Carter writes in The Virtues of Aging. are.
The lifestyle he and his wife Rosalyn, whom he married in 1946, “resembled more like that of our distant ancestors than that of our grandchildren.”
“People of my generation have experienced incredible social changes in our own lives and among those we know,” he said.
A Navy engineer turned peanut farmer, he won election to the Georgia Senate in 1962 and won the Peach State gubernatorial race in 1971.
Journalist Andrea Mitchell first met Carter in 1972 while covering the Democratic National Convention.
“When he first ran for president, I didn't know who he was. People called him 'Jimmy Who?'” because as a complete outsider to national politics, he Because he came in,” said Mitchell, who is NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent.
Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp (Democratic) called Mitchell and told him, “I want you to meet the next Democratic Party.'' [nominee] Four years from now, this is my friend Jimmy Carter from Georgia. ”
Carter entered the White House in 1976 after winning the Democratic presidential election against incumbent President Gerald Ford.
“As Mr. Carter took the oath of office, he made it clear early on that this was going to be a presidency unlike anything we've seen before,” said Matthew Costello, director of education at the White House Historical Society. Ta.
“Mr. Carter is deeply committed to the ideas of civil rights and human rights, which will influence not only our domestic policy toward the American people, but also our foreign policy going forward,” Costello said.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Kai Byrd called Carter's time in the White House “underappreciated.”
“He transformed this country's economy by deregulating the national airline, the trucking industry, and alcohol. For the first time under his presidency, all newly manufactured cars were required to have seat belts and air bags. has saved 10,000 American lives every year since then,” said Byrd, who wrote the 2021 biography “Outliers: Jimmy Carter’s Unfinished Presidency.”
“He accomplished much with his foreign policy, the Camp David Accords, which brought about a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. He made human rights a core principle of all U.S. foreign policy, and he '' added Bird, executive director of the Leon Levy Biographical Center at the City University of New York.
Nevertheless, he continued, “The perception is that Mr. Carter failed because he was not re-elected and because of the Iran hostage crisis that lasted 444 days.”
“I was only 56 years old when I reluctantly resigned from the White House,” Carter wrote of his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
“What made losing my job even worse was that it was a highly publicized event and probably half the world knew about my embarrassing defeat,” he recalled.
After some reflection and leaning on his family, Carter said, the couple “made a conscious choice to explore a completely new endeavor. We'd done that a few times when we were younger, so why not now?” spoke.
This quest led Mr. Carter to completely reimagine his role as former commander-in-chief.
Before him, Costello said, it was common for former presidents to leave public office and return to their hometowns and private lives. Instead, Mr. Carter used his high profile to create a radical new model for former presidents, one focused on humanitarian, philanthropic and diplomatic efforts.
“Humanitarian crises, political crises, promoting democracy and individual rights, all of which Mr. Carter was able to explain in detail as a president, but had more leeway as a former president,” he said at American University in White House History. said Costello, who teaches the course. .
“He wasn't tied down to a lot of the same things as presidents who were in office,” he said.
Mr. Costello, a longtime Sunday school teacher and advocate for Habitat for Humanity, said he “truly dedicated his life to public service and peace.”
The nonprofit Carter Center, which he and the former first lady founded in 1982, was founded on a “fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering.”
Volunteer work became a feature of Mr. Carter's life after the White House. In 2019, the day after getting stitches after a fall, Carter, then 95, was seen using a power drill while volunteering at a Habitat for Humanity construction project in Tennessee.
After countless interviews with Carter, Mitchell said she got to know him and “really values our relationship after he leaves the White House, even more so than when he was there.”
NBC News Washington correspondent and host of MSNBC's “Andrea Mitchell,” NBC News Washington correspondent and host “Andrea Mitchell,” who comes from a peanut farm, said, “When it comes to civil rights, things have changed. “His accomplishments were remarkable, serving as a model for a South that adapted to what would become the new South.” Report.”
On a personal level, Mitchell said, “His eyes are bright, he's very friendly, he's very outgoing, he's very humble. That's the most remarkable thing. He calls himself Jimmy. “But I've never thought I was better than anyone else.”
Rosalynn Carter passed away last November at the age of 96. The former president entered hospice care last February.
“A few months ago, he joked to one of his grandsons that he had lived a long and successful life and accomplished a lot, but apparently he wasn't very successful in this moribund business,” Bird said. said with a laugh.
And he has since hinted that he still has work to do in his life as November approaches.
“I'm just trying to vote for Kamala Harris,” Carter told her son Chip, her grandson Jason Carter said in an interview last month.
“It's amazing for anyone to live to be 100 years old. No former president has ever lived to be 100 years old,” Costello said.
“To think about this man who lived through the very American century – America became a global superpower after World War II, he served in the Navy and was part of what was shaped by the Cold War. His life is truly the story of America over the past 100 years: his views on politics, race, and the need for social justice that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. is.”
“His legacy is truly a service to our country, not just in longevity, but in how he has served and has served, and his commitment to human rights and empowering people,” Mitchell said. I think it sets an example.”
“I think people admire his resilience, perseverance and faith,” she added.
In his book on aging, Carter muses on the fundamentals of living a successful life, writing that “too many people spend their lives aging rather than maturing.”
“A person is old when regrets give way to dreams,” he wrote.
“Simple things like the search for our own happiness, peace, joy, contentment, and love in all its forms are always the keys to the virtues of life.”
—Updated October 1st 12:06am
