Jimmy Carter's Journey Begins in Georgia

Motorcade carries former president's casket through Plains, past his homes, to Atlanta
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 4, 2025 4:20 PM CST
Jimmy Carter's Journey Begins in Georgia
Former and current Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail carry the flag-draped casket Saturday at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

The procession leading to the state funeral for Jimmy Carter began Saturday, with residents of his Georgia hometown turning out to pay their respects as the motorcade carrying the former president's casket passed on its way to Atlanta. The journey began at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, about 10 miles from Plains, where the 39th president's body had been since he died Sunday at 100. The motorcade passed his boyhood home, which is now part of a national park though the land is still a working farm, per the Washington Post. There, National Park Service rangers and other employees saluted while a historic farm bell was rung 39 times.

In Plains, the vehicles passed the longtime ranch house where the former president and his wife, Rosalynn, had lived, and mourners holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins showing Carter's image lined the main street. "We want to pay our respects," said Will Porter Shelbrock, 12. "He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish." Willie Browner, 75, who grew up near Plains, said it meant a lot to him that someone from a small Southern town became president, per the AP. "This man, he thought of more than just himself," Browner said.

The procession later stopped at the Georgia Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator and governor, before reaching the Carter Center in Atlanta. There, where Carter's body will lie in repose until Tuesday, a military band played drums while marching, per USA Today. In Plains, Carter's children—Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy—had watched as the casket left the hospital and was placed in the hearse. It was their first public appearance since their father died, per the Post. Dozens of hospital employees, who had treated Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter many times, also gathered. "If one of them had to be hospitalized," said CEO Carlyle Walton, "they always wanted a second bed in the room so the other could stay, too." (More Jimmy Carter stories.)

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