-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday in his hometown of Plains, Georgia where he entered home hospice care last year, his son Chip Carter said. He was the longest-living American president at the age of 100, enduring recent battles with health issues as well as treatment for cancer in 2015. His death follows the passing of his wife of more than 75 years, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, on Nov. 19, 2023, shortly after she was diagnosed with dementia. "Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it," Carter wrote in a heartfelt tribute to his wife after her death. "As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me." Carter's grandson, Jason, said in a statement at the time that his grandfather's life was "coming to an end." “(My grandfather) is doing OK,” he said during a speech honoring his grandmother at the Carter Center. “He has been in hospice, as you know, for almost a year and a half now, and he really is, I think, coming to the end that, as I’ve said before, there’s a part of this faith journey that is so important to him, and there’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end and I think he has been there in that space.” Jason Carter added that Rosalynn's passing was "difficult" for his grandfather. But, he added, the "outpouring of love and support that we, as a family, received from people in this room and from the rest of the world was so remarkable and meaningful to us. And it really turned that whole process into a celebration.” Carter, a Democrat who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, "decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention," The Carter Center said last year. The previous winter, in a moment when he was at his sickest and his family feared the worst, the former president is said to have refused hospital care so he could remain by Rosalynn's side, historian Michael Beschloss told MSNBC following her passing. "I am told that President Carter said, 'No, I want to get home, and be in bed with Rosalynn, and just sit holding hands, and that's the way I'd like to close my life,'" Beschloss said, emphasizing the love the two shared and how their close partnership played a role in Carter's presidency. Related Former first lady Rosalynn Carter dies at 96 after a lifetime of humanitarian work Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946, and they had four children — Jack, James III, Donnel and Amy — as well as 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. The Carters celebrated their 77th anniversary on July 7, 2023 and held the record for the longest-wed presidential couple, with George H. W. and Barbara Bush the second longest-wed. After returning home from military service in 1953, Carter rose as an activist in the Democratic Party, opposing segregation and supporting the growing civil rights movement. Carter served as the lesser-known Georgia governor and former state senator who defeated then-President Gerald Ford in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. He connected with many Americans who felt betrayed by former President Richard Nixon and the devastating effects of the war in Southeast Asia. "If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don't vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president," Carter said frequently during his campaign for president. On his second day as president, Carter famously pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. Throughout the course of his presidency, Carter would have to govern amid Cold War pressures, racial tensions and unpredictable oil markets. Carter was well known for his work in foreign policy, including brokering the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978. He also restored the Panama Canal back to Panama and signed the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He designated millions of acres of land in Alaska as national parks and wildlife reserves. He also appointed a then-record number of women and Americans of color to federal posts and was best known for his promotion of civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the country's second-highest court. Carter was one of the last Democratic presidents to gain widespread support from the South before the rise of his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan. Carter lost much of his base after the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran culminated in a failed rescue mission in April 1980, resulting in the deaths of eight Americans. He served one term before losing to Reagan in 1980. In the years after his loss, Carter dealt with a lack of trust from his Democratic colleagues and was treated as a punchline amongst Republicans. However, decades later, he reflected on his presidency with a sense of pride, telling the Associated Press that he did "protect our nation's security and interests peacefully" and "enhance human rights here and abroad." "I'm perfectly at ease with whatever comes," he said in 2015. "I've had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence." The loss of a second term ultimately brought about Carter's decades of work in public health and human rights with The Carter Center, whose motto is "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope." Along with his wife Rosalynn, Carter opened the center in 1982 and their work was recognized in 2002 with the Nobel Peace Prize. While the former president spent most of his life in Plains, he traveled the world in his 80s and early 90s, including annual trips with Habitat for Humanity to build homes. Last year, the center celebrated 40 years of promoting democracy worldwide, including monitoring at least 113 elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia since 1989. The Carter Center also worked alongside the World Health Organization to ensure the near-eradication of the tropical disease known as Guinea worm. The former president was concerned with the health of those who did not have access to safe drinking water and were contracting the disease. "I would like to see Guinea worm completely eradicated before I die," he said at a news conference in 2015. "I'd like for the last Guinea worm to die before I do." Due to the Carter Center's work, the end of the destructive parasite is near. "It's an audacious and mind-boggling idea," Emily Staub, the press liaison to health programs for the Carter Center told CNN when Carter entered hospice care. "A whole bunch of people with the Carter Center decided that they were going to eradicate a disease that has no vaccine, no immunity, no medication. It's thousands of years old and has a one-year incubation. The odds are totally stacked against you. And the people that suffer from it speak thousands of different languages, and some have never had outsiders interact with them. "President Carter just jumped in with two feet," she said. Related President Jimmy Carter urges other members of the Democratic Party not to move too far to the left Carter in 2006 delivered the eulogy at the funeral of his close friend Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and praised her for "breaking down the racial barriers that had separated us one from another for almost two centuries." After the news broke that Carter was entering hospice care last year, Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta and Martin, said she was joining the nation in praying for him. "Former President Carter's love and compassion for all people set him apart as a leader, servant, and simply a great man striving to achieve a Beloved Community," she wrote . "We are praying that you feel God's grace, mercy, and love as well as the love of your family, The King Center, and the world that you have so graciously served." "I've had the good fortune to meet many presidents, kings, Nobel Peace Prize winners and truly impressive people. Few are as truly good as Jimmy Carter, who at age 98 is now entering hospice," wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff. "He leaves this planet so much better than he found it. A great, great, great man." Kai Bird, the former president's biographer, wrote in a guest essay for The Times that Carter "was not what you think." "Jimmy Carter was probably the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century," Bird wrote. "A Southern liberal, he knew racism was the nation's original sin. He was a progressive on the issue of race, declaring in his first address as Georgia's governor, in 1971, that 'the time for racial discrimination is over,' to the extreme discomfort of many Americans, including a good number of his fellow Southerners." Bird also reflected on Carter's post-presidential life, writing, "Some of his controversial decisions, at home and abroad, were just as consequential. He took Egypt off the battlefield for Israel, but he always insisted that Israel was also obligated to suspend building new settlements in the West Bank and allow the Palestinians a measure of self-rule." After the release of his 2006 New York Times bestselling book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Carter gave a radio interview in which he described apartheid to be the "forced separation of two peoples in the same territory with one of the groups dominating or controlling the other," and claimed that Israel's policies resulted in apartheid worse than South Africa's. "When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa," Carter said. While the book and his subsequent interviews generated controversy, including some accusing him of antisemitism, Carter continued to stand up for his beliefs in racial equality. "The hope is that my book will at least stimulate a debate, which has not existed in this country. There's never been any debate on this issue, of any significance," he said. "He was not afraid to warn everyone that Israel was taking a wrong turn on the road to apartheid," Bird wrote. "In or out of the White House, Mr. Carter devoted his life to solving problems, like an engineer, by paying attention to the minutiae of a complicated world." The Carter Center carried on its founder's voracious criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the wake of Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza, citing his Nobel Peace Prize speech in their call for a ceasefire in the city, the return of the hostages seized during Hamas' deadly attack and the reinstatement of services and resources to the besieged territory. "In his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said, 'We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,'" the center wrote in a statement . "His words resonate with us today more than ever as the Israel-Hamas conflict enters a new and even more dangerous phase." "Carter is widely considered a better man than he was a president," The Independent noted in 2009 — a sentiment widely shared by many Americans. Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman thanked Carter for his "decades of leadership, service, & wisdom" and wrote, "the future is brighter because of your work." Reverend William J. Barber II reflected on Carter's legacy through a theological lens. "President Jimmy Carter's leadership & moral commitment were so strong that some tried to undermine his legacy by calling him weak," he wrote on Twitter. "The so-called religious right said they wanted a Christian President, but Carter was one, & they stood against him — exposing their hypocrisy. Before Obama, Jimmy Carter broke through the Southern strategy." "Carter walked in the halls of power & never lost his humanity. He never let power and money change him," he added. "As he transitions to life evermore, I pray we forever learn from the model of leadership he showed us as President &, more importantly, as a person." After news broke that Carter was in hospice care, former President Bill Clinton tweeted a picture of him and Carter with the caption, "On this Presidents' Day I'm thinking of President Jimmy Carter." Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter , Crash Course. Residents of Plains, Georgia remember Carter fondly for his "small-town boy" demeanor. He was known to greet everyone he came in contact with, including in one instance every passenger on a commercial flight he took. "President Carter's very unique," Millard Simmons, a lifelong resident of Plains, told the Augusta Chronicle . "President Carter could have lived anywhere in the world he wanted to live, but he wanted to come back to a place that I think he loves; I know he loves." Local pastor Tony Lowden spent time with the former president in his last few days and told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter has "given us so much." Carter was an integral figure in the local community and was committed to diversity and inclusion within the church. After the Southern Baptist Union announced in 2000 that they would no longer allow women to become pastors, the former president renounced his membership. "I'm familiar with the verses they have quoted about wives being subjugated to their husbands," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2000 . "In my opinion, this is a distortion of the meaning of Scripture. I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God. I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church." Lowden said he looked to Carter for guidance in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in 2020. "He gave me better advice than anyone could have," Lowden told the outlet. "He told me not to hold back with my advice, even if it's tough. Tell the truth. You're not trying to win an election — you're trying to save America." The two had a rule each time they saw each other for prayer sessions or private conversations: Never say goodbye. Instead, Lowden told Carter three things: I love you, I'll see you again — and there's nothing you can do about it. Read more about Jimmy Carter Former Jimmy Carter aide corrects the record on a misunderstood presidency Jimmy Carter's landmark moment: The birth of the disability rights movement How Reaganism actually started with Carter By Samaa Khullar Samaa Khullar is a former news fellow at Salon with a background in Middle Eastern history and politics. She is a graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism institute and is pursuing investigative reporting. MORE FROM Samaa Khullar By Tatyana Tandanpolie Tatyana Tandanpolie is a staff writer at Salon. Born and raised in central Ohio, she moved to New York City in 2018 to pursue degrees in Journalism and Africana Studies at New York University. She is currently based in her home state and has previously written for local Columbus publications, including Columbus Monthly, CityScene Magazine and The Columbus Dispatch. 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Dylan Hernández: MLS deal with Apple TV could be hurting league's efforts to grow its fan baseBy JOSH BOAK and ZEKE MILLER WASHINGTON (AP) — Working-class voters helped Republicans make steady election gains this year and expanded a coalition that increasingly includes rank-and-file union members, a political shift spotlighting one of President-elect Donald Trump’s latest Cabinet picks: a GOP congresswoman, who has drawn labor support, to be his labor secretary. Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her bid for a second term this month, despite strong backing from union members, a key part of the Democratic base but gravitating in the Trump era toward a Republican Party traditionally allied with business interests. “Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success – Making America Richer, Wealthier, Stronger and more Prosperous than ever before!” Trump said in a statement announcing his choice Friday night. For decades, labor unions have sided with Democrats and been greeted largely with hostility by Republicans. But with Trump’s populist appeal, his working-class base saw a decent share of union rank-and-file voting for Republicans this year, even as major unions, including the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers , endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in the White House race. Trump sat down with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union leadership and members this year, and when he emerged from that meeting, he boasted that a significant chunk of union voters were backing him. Of a possible Teamsters endorsement, he said, “Stranger things have happened.” The Teamsters ultimately declined to endorse either Trump, the former president, or Harris, the vice president, though leader Sean O’Brien had a prominent speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. Kara Deniz, a Teamsters spokesperson, told the Associated Press that O’Brien met with more than a dozen House Republicans this past week to lobby on behalf of Chavez-DeRemer. “Chavez-DeRemer would be an excellent choice for labor secretary and has his backing,” Deniz said. The work of the Labor Department affects workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employers’ rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities. On Election Day, Trump deepened his support among voters without a college degree after running just slightly ahead of Democrat Joe Biden with noncollege voters in 2020. Trump made modest gains, earning a clear majority of this group, while only about 4 in 10 supported Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. Roughly 18% of voters in this year’s election were from union households, with Harris winning a majority of the group. But Trump’s performance among union members kept him competitive and helped him win key states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Chavez-DeRemer was one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act, which would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The measure would weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment. Trump’s first term saw firmly pro-business policies from his appointees across government, including those on the National Labor Relations Board. Trump, a real estate developer and businessman before winning the presidency, generally has backed policies that would make it harder for workers to unionize. During his recent campaign, Trump criticized union bosses, and at one point suggested that UAW members should not pay their dues. His first administration did expand overtime eligibility rules, but not nearly as much as Democrats wanted, and a Trump-appointed judge has since struck down the Biden administration’s more generous overtime rules. He has stacked his incoming administration with officials who worked on the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” blueprint, which includes a sharp swing away from Biden’s pro-union policies. “Chavez-DeRemer’s record suggests she understands the value of policies that strengthen workers’ rights and economic security,” said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of National Employment Law Project, which is backed my many of the country’s major labor unions. “But the Trump administration’s agenda is fundamentally at odds with these principles, threatening to roll back workplace protections, undermine collective bargaining, and prioritize corporate profits over the needs of working people. This is where her true commitment to workers will be tested.” Other union leaders also issued praise, but also sounded a note of caution. “Educators and working families across the nation will be watching ... as she moves through the confirmation process,” the president of the National Education Association, Becky Pringle, said in a statement, “and hope to hear a pledge from her to continue to stand up for workers and students as her record suggests, not blind loyalty to the Project 2025 agenda.” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler welcomed the choice while taking care to note Trump’s history of opposing polices that support unions. “It remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as secretary of labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda,” Shuler said.