Sparse but heartfelt well-wishers gathered, came and went Monday outside the Carter Center in Atlanta, remembering the life and legacy of Georgia’s only U.S. president, Jimmy Carter.
Carter died Sunday at age 100.
Outside the locked gate of the Carter family’s nonprofit dedicated to fostering global health and peace, visitors left flowers and personal notes at the base of the center’s sign.
Honoring his legacy: Here are 16 of former President Jimmy Carter’s most impactful quotes
Maija Ehlinger attended Emory University, which appointed Carter as a University Distinguished Professor in 1982. “I got to hear him speak as a freshman, which made an impression on me,” she said.
Now that she lives near the Carter Center, it gives her a sense of pride.
“Knowing the impact he’s made through Habitat for Humanity, through his work around the world, supporting so much in terms of democracy around the world, it’s part of a legacy,” Ehlinger said. “It’s an honor being in this neighborhood.”
Nick Lynton, originally from rural Georgia, credits Carter’s presidency with lifting the Southern state into the national and international spotlight.
“Just being a rural Georgian I don’t think anyone knew the state, especially out of Atlanta” like Carter, he said. “He just has been an amazing person post-presidency, and everything he’s done, his humanitarian work, Habitat for Humanity, all that stuff.”
Carter’s name was uttered in reverence in Karen Gorman’s household as a child growing up in West Virginia, with memories still fresh from the Watergate scandal.
“I was just telling my kids last night that he was a big part of my household, because my parents were very into politics,” she said. “My dad helped campaign for Kennedy.”
Carter would even drop in for supper, sort of.
“When Carter came into office, it was at the dinner table,” Gorman said. “A little black-and-white TV was always talking about politics. It was a big relief when he came into office for my parents. My parents were like, ‘Thank God, someone who’s honest and good is living in this White House.'”
Sisters Rebecca Schmidt and Kimberly Kuwabara spent part of the holidays in Auburn, Ala., making a side trip to Atlanta over the weekend to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.
As they watched a video of King’s 1968 funeral, a text message chirped on their phones announcing Carter’s death.
More: Donations to Carter Center encouraged in lieu of flowers. How you can honor Jimmy Carter
“President Jimmy Carter has been one of my heroes for a very long time, ever since I started doing Habitat for Humanity project in the early nineties,” Schmidt said, though she never had the opportunity to meet him personally.
But Kuwabara did. Several years ago she sat in on one of Carter’s Sunday school classes at his home church, Maranatha Baptist, in his hometown of Plains. Attendance in those popular classes has been known to reach into the hundreds, but she said it was more like 30.
“It was quite an experience,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Saddened visitors gather to recall Jimmy Carter’s long, acclaimed life
#Visitors #remember #Jimmy #Carter #Atlanta #center #peace
Leave a Reply