Americans have gathered to see Jimmy Carter off as the nearly week-long state farewell for the 39th US president is underway.
Saturday’s procession from Carter’s home in Plains, Georgia, to Atlanta marked the beginning of a six-day public farewell to the statesman who died last month at the age of 100.
Carter will be flown to Washington DC on Tuesday, where he will lie in state at the US Capitol leading a service on Thursday that will include statements from former US presidents.
Hundreds of Georgians and people from around the world gathered in Atlanta this weekend to pay their respects to the Carter family.
Among those who came Saturday was Heather Brooks, an Atlanta resident and “huge fan” of the Democrats.
“[I] I found him to be always kind, approachable, just a great individual who has done so much for the world, not just America,” Ms Brooks told the BBC.
She said she had met Carter several times and described him as “powerful yet so humble.”
Paige Alexander, head of the Carter Center, told the BBC that Carter should be remembered for his “honesty and integrity”.
“I mean, at the end of the day, you have a politician who would say during a debate, you know, ‘honorable president [Gerald] Ford and I disagree on these issues,’ Ms Alexander said. “You don’t hear that now.”
The grassy area outside the Carter Center was awash with flowers, handwritten gifts and sacks of peanuts, a reference to Carter’s early years as a peanut farmer on the Plains.
Those who knew the former president well, such as Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of the Carter family, said she will miss his – and his wife, Rosalynn’s – commitment to helping others.
It was something Ms Stuckey said the couple were committed to “until the day they died”.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get used to a world without President Carter,” she told the BBC.
On Saturday, a motorcade passed the Methodist church where the Carters were married in 1946 and the house where they lived and died.
The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn, who died in late 2023 at the age of 96.
The procession also stopped outside Carter’s childhood home and family farm near Plains. The site is now part of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, which on Saturday rang the old farm bell 39 times in honor of the 39th president.
The procession then stopped at the Georgia capitol building for a moment of silence led by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
Mourners will be able to visit Carter at the Presidential Library on January 5 and 6 before he is flown to Washington DC on January 7.
He will lie in state for two days in the US Capitol Rotunda, where the public will be able to pay his respects.
His life will be commemorated at the Washington National Cathedral on January 9 in a service attended by several former presidents.
On top of the political accolades Carter is expected to receive in the coming days are personal tributes from his extended family.
Jason Carter, grandson of the former president, will especially miss the personal connection he had with people.
“I think for a lot of people in the country he was a beacon of love and respect and I think that’s worth celebrating,” Jason Carter, a former Georgia state senator, told the BBC.
