Jimmy Carter Turns 100, and His Hometown Is Ringing in the Milestone

The Washington Post / Tim Craig, Casey Parks

11:21 JST, October 2, 2024

PLAINS, Ga. – Signs that read “Happy 100th Birthday Mr. President!” dotted lawns. The local general store stocked up on its famous peanut butter ice cream. And the population of this tiny southwestern Georgia town swelled for a day.

Jimmy Carter turned 100 on Tuesday, and his hometown pulled out all the stops to celebrate the milestone – even though the former president, who has been in hospice care for 19 months, wasn’t attending.

The birthday bash for the first U.S. president to reach 100 included a military jet flyover, a naturalization ceremony and a concert. Carter watched the flyover from a wheelchair in his backyard, surrounded by family. Video shared by CBS News showed a frail-looking Carter wearing a blue baseball cap. Carter has not attended a major event since his wife’s memorial in November 2023.

Throughout Plains, locals were excited to honor the man they know simply as “Mr. Jimmy.” Many residents here have stories about running into Carter at the pharmacy or the peanut shop that sells the flavor of ice cream he enjoys. And even though Plains leans Republican, some houses with yard signs supporting former president Donald Trump also had signs commemorating Carter.

“Everybody in this town is crazy about him,” said Sonya Fox, who works at a medical clinic that Carter helped to establish in the town. “There wasn’t a doubt in our mind that he would make it.”

Jill Stuckey, the superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park here in Plains, visits with Carter almost daily and said the former president was in an upbeat mood but fairly nonchalant about his birthday.

“I ask him how it feels being 100, and I really get no reaction,” said Stuckey, adding that Carter often just shrugs his shoulders. “But what he is really interested in is what we are doing to help people around town, or how some of his friends are.”

Carter has never been one for huge birthday bashes. He spent his 52nd campaigning and his 55th, as president, drinking white wine at a D.C. steakhouse with his wife and a few friends. After he lost reelection at 56, Carter returned to the Georgia town where he was born in 1924. Friends said he has mostly opted for low-key celebrations ever since.

Boze Godwin, who served as the town’s mayor for 40 years before retiring in January, threw a few lowcountry-boil birthday parties for Carter, and once, when Carter wanted homemade peach ice cream, Godwin drove four hours each way to Steinhatchee, Fla., to buy a gallon.

The only fancy celebration Godwin remembers Carter ever having was his 75th. He commemorated that one with a gala and a fundraiser to restore the Rylander Theatre in Americus, Ga. Pat Boone and the Indigo Girls performed, and Carter cut his birthday cake with a saber he earned at the Naval Academy.

Statistically, Americans have a less than 1 percent chance of living to 100. When Carter took office, just one president, John Adams, had lived to be 90. Since then, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush have all reached at least 93, but no former president has lived as long as Carter.

Carter has faced particularly significant challenges over the past decade. In 2015, he was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, a usually fatal skin cancer that spread to his liver and brain. He has suffered a number of falls in recent years, and in February 2023, he entered hospice care.

Because his health has been so bad, Plains residents didn’t expect him to show up last October when they celebrated his 99th birthday at the annual peanut festival. Most people were watching the parade when a black Chevy Suburban driven by a Secret Service agent suddenly turned onto Main Street. The crowd gasped and cheered as they realized that Carter was in the back seat, wearing an Atlanta Braves ball cap and holding hands with Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years.

Carter was struggling then, and family members have said that his health has slipped further since Rosalynn died at 96 in November, a month and a half after their birthday ride. He needs a wheelchair to get around, and Carter can no longer read or write, Stuckey said, but he still watches television sitcoms and news programs.

Carter did not attend this year’s peanut festival, which was Saturday. He was last spotted out locally around the Fourth of July, when Stuckey said he went to see a fireworks display in a neighboring community.

Nonetheless, his neighbors in Plains have been planning for his 100th celebration for the past year. Tickets to the events sold out within a few days. The building where the festivities were held holds about 300 people – roughly enough spots for only half the town, Stuckey said, and everyone wanted a chance to mark history.

“There’s never been a president to live to 100,” Stuckey said. “It’s very humbling and a great moment in history that we get to have a front-row seat to.”

The celebration Tuesday began with a naturalization ceremony in which 100 people from 30 countries became U.S. citizens. Before they were sworn in, the new citizens watched a 25-minute recounting of Carter’s life.

“Carter is a model for what it means to be a U.S. citizen, what it means to give back to your country,” Denise Frazier, district director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told the audience after she swore in the new citizens. “He truly is someone who is about the people.”

Many of the immigrants said they did not realize until recently why their naturalization ceremony was scheduled for Tuesday in Plains. But several said they were savoring the historic day.

“I think Jimmy Carter made history for the state of Georgia, and I feel grateful and happy at the same time,” said Salvatore Marra, 35, who lives in Columbus, Ga.

Family members have said that Carter is more interested in the state of the country than he is his own birthday. James Earl “Chip” Carter III told The Washington Post in early September that his father spent days watching the speeches from the Democratic National Convention.

When Chip Carter told his father that many people believe he is trying to stay alive to reach his birthday, the former president pushed back: “He said he didn’t care about that. It’s just a birthday. He said he cared about voting for Kamala Harris.”

Carter’s state of Georgia is critical to the November election. Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020 by less than 1 percent of the vote in the state, and Carter’s family said he can’t wait to cast his mail-in ballot for Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Few cities in America have had such a close-knit relationship with a president as Carter has had with Plains.

In his memoir “An Hour Before Daylight,” Carter wrote about growing up in a one-story farmhouse on the edge of Plains, just a few generations after the end of slavery, when White and Black Georgians were still figuring out how to live together and rely on one another.

Carter’s family grew peanuts and cotton and struggled, with the help of Black farm hands and neighbors, to make it through the Great Depression. His childhood on the farm left an indelible mark.

“My most persistent impression as a farm boy was of the earth,” Carter wrote. “There was a closeness, almost an immersion, in the sand, loam and red clay that seemed natural and constant.”

After Carter married Rosalynn, the couple built a house in Plains in 1961. They lived there together until her death, except for Carter’s stints in the governor’s mansion in Atlanta and his time in the White House. The home, where he still lives, is also from where they launched much of their humanitarian work.

Today, Plains has a population that remains in the triple digits. Most of the town’s main attractions involve the Carters. The city has commemorated both Jimmy’s and Rosalynn’s childhood homes. The old train depot where he headquartered his presidential campaign is now a museum. About 65,000 people visit the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park each year.

The town’s main drag is home to Bobby Salter’s Plain Peanuts and General Store, which is located in a warehouse once owned by Carter’s family. It sells one of Carter’s favorite treats: peanut butter ice cream.

Most of the shop owners in Plains know the former president personally.

“No one thought we would actually reach this point, but now that we have reached this point, it’s pretty exciting,” said Philip Kurland, owner of the political memorabilia shop Plains Trading Post. “It’s exciting, but it’s sad. The sad part is they don’t come into the stores anymore and they are not as involved.”

Many here aren’t surprised that Carter made it to 100. And they note that his longevity isn’t by accident. Carter’s mother, Lillian, who was a nurse, instilled in him from a young age the value of good nutrition. Throughout much of his life, Carter was also an avid runner. In his later years, he had a swimming pool installed at his house so he could keep exercising.

“But both he and Rosalynn ate right, every single meal. They exercised every single day and made it a priority,” Stuckey said. “They were just regimented in their health ethic, because they wanted to live as long as they possibly could to help as many people as they possibly could.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s celebrations, many from near and far were reflecting on Carter’s legacy. Many Black residents recalled how Carter helped rebuild what they refer to as “the projects,” where many low-income Plains residents reside.

Stanley Lockhart, who is Black and became paralyzed after a swimming accident 15 years ago, said he has so much admiration for Carter that he would always try to say hello to him. Lockhart would lift his elbow just high enough to signal a wave.

“If I see him, I wave to him, and he would wave back,” said Lockhart, 52. “He did a lot of good stuff for us, and he was a good man.”

Others were reflecting on how his life and career crossed political lines that now feel etched in stone.

“He brought people together instead of dividing them, unlike some people we know,” said Paula Riley, 64, who lives in Randolph County, Ga., and took her family on a tour of Carter’s boyhood home on Monday.

April Kirkman, 67, traveled to Plains from California with her guitar and a song she wrote for the former president. The song is titled, “I Wanna Be a Jimmy Carter Kinda Christian.” She said it is meant to praise a past era when politics and religion were less divisive.

“Faith, hope, love are what I choose,” the lyrics read. “Yea, yea, a Jimmy Carter kinda Christian. No, no, I ain’t talking ’bout religion. Just wanna walk a mile in those Size 11 shoes.”