Jimmy Carter's funeral begins by tracing 100 years from rural Georgia to the world stage

ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter 's extended public farewell began Saturday in Georgia, with the 39th U.S. president’s flag-draped casket tracing his long arc from the Depression-era South and family farming business to the pinnacle of American political power and decades as a global humanitarian.

Those chapters shone throughout the opening stanza of a six-day state funeral intended to blend personalized memorials with the ceremonial pomp afforded to former presidents. The longest-lived U.S. executive, Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

“He was an amazing man. He was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman,” son James Earl “Chip” Carter III, told mourners at The Carter Center late Saturday afternoon, referring also to his mother, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023. “The two of them together changed the world. And it was an amazing thing to watch so close.”

Grandson Jason Carter, who now chairs the center's governing board, said, “It's amazing what you can cram into a hundred years.”

Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied their patriarch as his hearse rode first Saturday through his hometown of Plains, which at about 700 residents is not much bigger than when Carter was born there Oct. 1, 1924. The procession stopped at the farm where the future president toiled alongside the Black sharecroppers who worked for his father. The motorcade continued to Atlanta, stopping in front of the Georgia Capitol where Carter served as a state senator and reformist governor.

Finally, he arrived for his last visit to the Carter Presidential Center, which houses his presidential library and The Carter Center where he based his post-White House advocacy for public health, democracy and human rights, setting a new standard for what former presidents can accomplish after they yield power.

“His spirit fills this place,” Jason Carter told the assembly that included some of the center's 3,000 employees worldwide. “You continue the vibrant living legacy of what is my grandfather’s life work,” he added.

Pallbearers on Saturday came from the Secret Service that protected the Carters for almost a half-century and a military honor guard that included Navy servicemembers for the only U.S. Naval Academy graduate to reach the Oval Office. A military band played “Hail to the Chief” and the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” for the commander in chief who also was a devout Baptist.

His longtime personal pastor, the Rev. Tony Lowden, remembered not a president but the frail man who spent the last 22 months in hospice care, “wrapped in a blanket” that included the words of Psalm 23.

Chip Carter recalled “the boss” he had to make an appointment to see in the Oval Office, but also the father who spent an entire Christmas break learning Latin and teaching his 8th-grade son who had failed a test. When he took that test again, the younger Carter said, he aced it: “I owed it to my father, who spent that kind of time with me.”

Jimmy Carter will lie in repose at the Carter Presidential Center from 7 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Tuesday, with the public able to pay respects around the clock.

Scott Lyle, an engineer who grew up in Georgia but now lives in New York, was among the first mourners to pay his respects. Lyle said he joined Carter to build homes with Habitat for Humanity for the first time in LaGrange, Georgia, in 2003. Since then, he has traveled around the world to build houses with the group.

“I got to see, what some people don’t get to see, close. He was an amazing man, and he cared about others. He walked the walk,” said Lyle, who was wearing Carter-themed Habitat gear. “And I can’t think of anyone else that I would want to stand in line to pay my respects for.”

National rites will continue in Washington and conclude Thursday with a funeral at Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains. There, the former president will be buried next to his wife of 77 years near the home they built before his first state Senate campaign in 1962.

The Carters lived nearly all their lives in Plains, with the exception of his Naval service, four years in the Governor's Mansion and four years in the White House. As his hearse rolled through the town, mourners lined the main street, some holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins bearing images of the former president and his signature smile.

Willie Browner, 75, described Carter as hailing from a bygone era of American politics.

“This man, he thought of more than just himself,” said Browner, who grew up in the town of Parrott, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Plains. Browner said it meant “a great deal” to have a president come from a small Southern town like his — something he worries isn’t likely to happen again.

Indeed, Carter helped plan his own funeral to emphasize that his remarkable rise to the world stage was because of — not despite — his deep rural roots.

Over the course of a few blocks in Plains, the motorcade passed near where the Carters ran the family peanut warehouse, and the small home where his mother, a nurse, had delivered the future first lady in 1927. The hearse passed the old train depot that served as Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — a barebones effort that depended on public financing, dwarfed by the billion-dollar U.S. presidential campaigns of the 21st century.

At the Carter farm, a few dozen National Park Service rangers stood in formation in front of the home, which did not have running water or electricity when Carter was a boy. The old farm bell rang 39 times to honor Carter's place as the 39th president.

Beside the house, there remains the tennis court that Carter's father, James Earl Carter Sr., built for the family — a nod to the blend of privilege and hard rural life that defined the future president's upbringing. Carter worked the land throughout the Great Depression, but it was owned by the elder Carter, who employed the surrounding Black tenant farmers during the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Carter wrote and spoke extensively on those formative years and how the abject poverty and institutional racism he saw influenced his policies in government and human rights work.

Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia legislator, remembered that legacy Saturday at the state Capitol. Smyre, who is Black, said Carter’s repudiation of racial segregation allowed Black people to wield power in Georgia.

“We stand on the shoulder of courageous people like Jimmy Carter,” Smyre said. “What he did shocked and shook the political ground here in the state of Georgia. And we live better because of that.”

Payne reported from Plains, Georgia.

Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.

The Guard of Honor surrounds the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in repose at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

People watch as a hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter passes a grain elevator as it moves through downtown Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A military body bear teams places the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter onto the catafalque at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Marine Staff Sgt. Nayya Dobson-EL stands as part of the Guard of Honor at the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in repose at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Mourners view the casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in repose at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29th at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

The Guard of Honor surrounds the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in repose at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

People watch from an overpass as the hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter drives on I-75 through Forsyth, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, en route to Atlanta. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Children watch as the hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter pauses outside the State Capitol in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

James "Chip" Carter speaks during a service for former President Jimmy Carter at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

A military body bearer team carries the casket of former President Jimmy Carter into the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum to lie in repose in Atlanta, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool)

People wait for a funeral procession for former President Jimmy Carter to move through downtown Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the Carter detail, places his hand on the hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

The hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter moves toward Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, carry the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

The flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter is placed into the hearse before it departs Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Karen Barry, left, and Randy Dillard, the longest serving NPS Plains staffers, ring the farm bell 39 times as the motorcade with the flag-draped hearse of former President Jimmy Carter stops in front of the Boyhood Farm, where Carter grew up, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, Plains, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

NPS employees, based out of Sumter County, Ga., salute the hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as the motorcade stops in front of the Boyhood Farm, where President Carter grew up, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, in Plains, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

The hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter moves toward Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, walk with the hearse carrying flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, move the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

People watch as a hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter moves through downtown Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

A person holds signs as the hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter, pauses at the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm in Archery, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, move the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

A young boy salutes as the hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter moves through downtown Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

People wait for a funeral procession for former President Jimmy Carter to move through downtown Plains, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/)

People line the road before the hearse with the casket of former President Jimmy Carter departs Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, move the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter welcomes visitors to Maranatha Baptist Church before teaching Sunday school in Plains, Ga., June 8, 2014. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

FILE - People wait in line outside Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., to get into a Sunday school class taught by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Aug. 23, 2015. It was Carter's first lesson since announcing plans for intravenous drug doses and radiation to treat melanoma found in his brain after surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

People line the street in Plains, Ga., before the hearse carrying the casket of former President Jimmy Carter passes through the town Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown, Aug. 23, 2015, in Plains, Ga. The 90-year-old Carter gave one lesson to about 300 people filling the small Baptist church that he and his wife, Rosalynn, attend. It was Carter's first lesson since detailing the intravenous drug doses and radiation treatment planned to treat melanoma found in his brain after surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress convenes during a winter storm to certify President-elect Donald Trump's election, the legacy of Jan. 6 hangs over the proceedings with an extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time and is legitimately returning to power.

Lawmakers will gather noontime Monday under the tightest national security level possible. Layers of tall black fencing flank the U.S. Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago, when a defeated Trump sent his mob to “fight like hell” in what became the most gruesome attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years.

No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress are expected this time. Republicans from the highest levels of power who challenged the 2020 election results when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.

And Democrats frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accept the choice of the American voters. Even the snowstorm barreling down on the region wasn't expected to interfere with Jan. 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.

“Whether we’re in a blizzard or not, we are going to be in that chamber making sure this is done,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who helped lead Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, said Sunday on Fox News Channel.

The day's return to a U.S. tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies that he lost four years ago, muses about staying beyond the Constitution's two-term White House limit and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege.

What’s unclear is if Jan. 6, 2021, was the anomaly, the year Americans violently attacked their own government, or if this year's expected calm becomes the outlier. The U.S. is struggling to cope with its political and cultural differences at a time when democracy worldwide is threatened. Trump calls Jan. 6, 2021, a “day of love.”

“We should not be lulled into complacency,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the cross-ideological nonprofit Protect Democracy.

He and others have warned that it is historically unprecedented for U.S. voters to do what they did in November, reelecting Trump after he publicly refused to step aside last time. Returning to power an emboldened leader who has demonstrated his unwillingness to give it up “is an unprecedentedly dangerous move for a free country to voluntarily take,” Bassin said.

Biden, speaking Sunday at events at the White House, called Jan. 6, 2021, “one of the toughest days in American history.”

“We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power,” the president said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, "was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now.”

Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, will come together to affirm the choice of Americans.

With pomp and tradition, the day is expected to unfold as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Trump's mob stormed the building last time.

Senators will walk across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.

Harris will preside over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certify her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.

She will stand at the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly rushed to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers fumbled to put on gas masks and flee, and shots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the chamber.

There are new procedural rules in place in the aftermath of what happened four years ago, when Republicans parroting Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent challenged the results their own states had certified.

Under changes to the Electoral Count Act, it now requires one-fifth of lawmakers, instead of just one in each chamber, to raise any objections to election results. With security as tight as it is for the Super Bowl or the Olympics, law enforcement is on high alert for intruders. No tourists will be allowed.

But none of that is expected to be necessary.

Republicans, who met with Trump behind closed doors at the White House before Jan. 6, 2021, to craft a complex plan to challenge his election defeat, have accepted his win this time.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the House floor challenge in 2021, said people at the time were so astonished by the election’s outcome and there were “lots of claims and allegations.”

This time, he said, “I think the win was so decisive.... It stifled most of that.”

Democrats, who have raised symbolic objections in the past, including during the disputed 2000 election that Gore lost to George W. Bush and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, have no intention of objecting. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said the Democratic Party is not “infested” with election denialism.

“There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said on the first day of the new Congress, to applause from Democrats in the chamber.

“You see, one should love America when you win and when you lose. That's the patriotic thing to do,” Jeffries said.

Last time, far-right militias helped lead the mob to break into the Capitol in a war-zone-like scene. Officers have described being crushed and pepper-sprayed and beaten with Trump flag poles, “slipping in other people's blood.”

Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Many others faced prison, probation, home confinement or other penalties.

Those Republicans who engineered the legal challenges to Trump’s defeat still stand by their actions, celebrated in Trump circles, despite the grave costs to their personal and professional livelihoods.

Several including disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and indicted-but-pardoned Michael Flynn met over the weekend at Trump’s private club Mar-a-Lago estate for a film screening about the 2020 election.

Trump was impeached by the House on the charge of inciting an insurrection that day but was acquitted by the Senate. At the time, GOP leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for the siege but said his culpability was for the courts to decide.

Federal prosecutors subsequently issued a four-count indictment of Trump for working to overturn the election, including for conspiracy to defraud the United States, but special counsel Jack Smith was forced to pare back the case once the Supreme Court ruled that a president has broad immunity for actions taken in office.

Smith last month withdrew the case after Trump won reelection, adhering to Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.

Biden, in one of his outgoing acts, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who had been the chair and vice chair of the congressional committee that conducted an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump has said those who worked on the Jan. 6 committee should be locked up.

Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

FILE - Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., officiate as a joint session of the House and Senate convenes to count the Electoral College votes cast in the presidential election, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)