Brandon Livesay
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died on Sunday in his home town of Plains, Georgia. He was 100 years old.

Carter had been treated for cancer and spent the last 19 months in hospice care.

He lived longer than any US president in history, and his legacy extends far beyond his single term in the White House.

President Joe Biden described his fellow Democrat as "a man of principle, faith and humility," while President-elect Donald Trump said all Americans owe Carter a "debt of gratitude".

Carter was a humanitarian and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was a man who lived a complex and full life.

So please do read some of these articles from my colleagues, which help give insight into Carter's achievements and challenges.

• Jimmy Carter: From peanut farmer to one-term president and Nobel winner
• Problems that plagued Carter have also troubled Biden
• Life in Pictures: Jimmy Carter
• US to hold national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter

We are now ending our rolling coverage, thank you for joining us.

BBC World Service

Image source, Jill Stuckey

A long-time friend of Jimmy Carter has spoken to the BBC World Service’s OS programme about his death, telling presenter Andrew Peach the news is bittersweet

"He’s finally got his wish to be with his beloved Rosalynn. So I celebrate that, I celebrate his life, but selfishly I’m going to miss him terribly," Jill Stuckey said.

Stuckey first met Carter in 1994 through her husband, who helped fundraise for his presidential campaign. She last saw him on Christmas Day.

"I left for vacation Christmas morning and as I typically do before I go out of town I go visit him. I was in and out very quickly, just checking on things… I was always worried about his health. He’s been in hospice now for 22 months, so I’ve been constantly checking. He seemed to be having a good day, Christmas Day," Stuckey said.

She said his death is being felt deeply in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

"He always came back home to Plains. He travelled the world but he always returned to Plains – and even in death he will return to Plains and be buried literally in the front yard of the house that they built in 1961.

Image source, Getty Images

Jimmy Carter's post-presidency legacy includes working with the Christian organisation Habitat for Humanity to help build homes.

The former president and his wife Rosalynn began work with the charity in 1984, and helped to repair more than 4,000 homes.

He worked tirelessly for the charity well into his 90s, and even was back volunteering on builds a few months after surgery for a broken hip.

Days after his 95th birthday, he attended a ceremony celebrating his 36th building project, wearing a bandage above his eye and 14 stitches after falling at home, the Associated Press reported.

"With our freedom, every one of us can make a basic decision... ‘What kind of person do I, myself, choose to be," he said at the ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee.

Habitat for Humanity has thanked Carter and paid tribute to his life in a post on X, saying that he "touched lives around the world" and inspired the renovation and repair of 4,447 Habitat homes.

Image source, Getty Images

Politics in the US was ablaze following the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate schools in the 1950s. With his background as a farmer from a southern state, Jimmy Carter might have been expected to oppose reform - but he had different views to his father.

While serving two terms in the state Senate, he avoided clashes with segregationists - including many in the Democratic party.

But on becoming Georgia governor in 1970, he became more overt in his support of civil rights.

"I say to you quite frankly," he declared in his inaugural speech, "that the time for racial discrimination is over".

He placed pictures of Martin Luther King on the walls of the capitol building, as the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated outside.

He made sure that African Americans were appointed to public offices.

However, he found it difficult balancing his strong Christian faith with his liberal instincts when it came to abortion law. Although he supported the rights of women to terminate pregnancy, he refused to increase funding to make this possible.

• Read Carter's full obituary, which examines his legacy in detail

The BBC's Americast podcast takes a look back at life of former US President Jimmy Carter, as presenter Justin Webb speaks to Jonathan Alter, the author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.

Have a listen here or on the BBC Sounds mobile app

Image source, Reuters

In 2007, Jimmy Carter teamed up with Nelson Mandela and founded The Elders, an NGO made up of global leaders that advocate for human rights.

Former President of Colombia and group chair Juan Manuel Santos has paid tribute to Carter in a statement, saying he's devastated at the loss of his dear friend.

"Jimmy brought the gravitas of the Presidential office as well as the passion of an activist to The Elders. Even into his 90s, and after his cancer was diagnosed, he inspired us all with his boundless energy and enthusiasm for working to make the world a better place," Santos says.

"The world has lost an inspirational figure – but one whose achievements will not be forgotten, and whose commitment to peace, democracy and human rights will endure to inspire future generations."

Looking back at decades of Jimmy Carter's public life in politics and international diplomacy, the former president delivered a great many impactful speeches.

Here are five quotes from some of his key addresses, they focus on themes that are as pertinent today as they were when he first said them:

Events celebrating Jimmy Carter's life will begin at the end of this week and will last eight days, the New York Times reports, external, citing organisers.

A national day of mourning will be held on 9 January, along with a state funeral for the former president at Washington National Cathedral.

A state funeral is traditionally reserved for a head of state. The US holds them for all presidents, former presidents, and other people the sitting president designates.

President Joe Biden is expected to deliver a eulogy.

Residents of Plains, Georgia, have remembered their home-town icon Jimmy Carter as a man of great influence who still made time for his neighbours.

Plains local Andrew Greer said Carter had global importance, but some of his greatest influence was in his home town

Suzanne Taylor remembers meeting Carter when she was in her 20s and "he talked to me like I was a normal person".

Watch the video above for more memories from Plains locals.

Alex Emery
BBC News

Nigel Pearce, from St Neots in Cambridgeshire, says he met Jimmy Carter between 2012 and 2016 while working as a Middle East analyst for the Elders - an NGO that advocates for human rights.

“I met him about a dozen times in places such as London, Paris and Jerusalem," Pearce tells the BBC.

“The elders would go to hot spots around the world and try and improve things, looking for ways to make peace.

“Jimmy Carter was incredibly friendly and sociable. If we were on a plane together and flying to Paris, for example, he would walk up and down and greet everybody and talk to everyone.

“It was during this time that I discovered that he also wrote poetry. To read his collection, 'Always a Reckoning', is a good way of learning more about this special person.”

Neil Prior
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Jimmy Carter had a life-long love affair with Wales fuelled by his passion for the legendary poet Dylan Thomas.

"My own belief, and many people share this with me, is that he was the best poet of the last century," Carter once told BBC Radio Wales.

He visited Wales five times - in 1982, 1986, 1988, 1995 and 2008.

Perhaps his best-known trip came in June 1986, when he went fly fishing in mid and west Wales just two months after his successor Ronald Reagan bombed Libya.

Although not involved in the decision to bomb Tripoli and the Benghazi region, Carter was viewed as a potential retaliatory target for terrorists.

Alun Lenny, a former BBC Wales reporter, received an anonymous tip-off that the former president was about to arrive in Tregaron, Ceredigion. And Lenny managed to get an interview after an eventful day.

You can read more about Lenny's time with Carter in the article below.

• Read more: Jimmy Carter's love affair with Wales

Image source, Getty Images

In 2011, Jimmy Carter revealed that the king of rock and roll, who was a very distant cousin of his, called the White House while high.

“When I was first elected President, I got a call from Elvis Presley," Carter told the New Yorker.

"He was totally stoned and didn’t know what he was saying. His sentences were almost incoherent.”

Eventually, Carter said that he managed to decipher that Presley wanted a presidential pardon for a sheriff he knew.

“I asked him what the sheriff’s sentence was, and he said that he hadn’t been tried in court yet. Well, I said, ‘Elvis, I can’t consider a pardon until after a trial and sentencing and everything.’ I don’t think he understood that," Carter said.

The article adds that though Presley’s calls to the White House continued, Carter never spoke to him again.

Image source, Getty Images

Almost two years ago, US President Joe Biden revealed that Jimmy Carter had asked him to deliver his eulogy.

At a cancer fundraiser in California in March 2023, one month after Carter began hospice care, Biden revealed, "He asked me to do his eulogy — excuse me, I shouldn't say that," BBC's US partner, CBS news reports.

Biden and Carter were friends - Biden served in the US Senate during Carter's presidency, and he and Jill visited the Carters to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary.

Image source, Getty Images

Events celebrating Jimmy Carter's life are expected to last for several days, spanning from his small humble hometown of Plains, Georgia, to Washington DC.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared that 9 January will be a National Day of Mourning and said there would be a state service held for Carter in the nation's capitol. Details remain unclear.

In the end, Carter, the 39th president, will be buried in a private ceremony in Plains next to Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, who died in November 2023.

Image source, EPA

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement on Sunday recalling former President Carter's career in the US Navy, years before he ran for office and became president.

"In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, he noted that his 'first chosen career was in the military,'" Austin said in a statement.

Carter graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946 and completed two years of duty on ships before beginning to work on submarines. As a lieutenant, Carter was part of a program to develop nuclear-powered submarines, and served on the first US sub built since World War II.

He later had to leave the military to help support his family in Georgia after his father died. The USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered submarine was commissioned in his honour in 2005.

"President Carter's lifelong leadership and deep faith will continue to inspire Americans and people around the world," Secretary Austin's statement said.

Naval leaders also honored Carter, saying that the Navy mourns "the loss of a shipmate".

"President Carter’s life of service will continue to be an example for us and help us navigate our course," said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

The Nobel Prize committee does not usually comment when a recipient of a prize dies, however the committee responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize has given a statement on Jimmy Carter.

It says that upon his death, the committee repeats its praise for his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development".

The statement given to the Reuters news agency adds that it congratulated Carter on his 100th birthday earlier this year and at the time said that "his work in favour of peace, democracy and human rights will be remembered for another 100 years or more".

Image source, JIMMY CARTER LIBRARY/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Jimmy Carter had a huge impact on the Middle East, negotiating the Camp David Accords which ended the conflict between Israel and neighbouring Egypt. In his tribute on X, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu described this as “a peace treaty that has held for nearly half a century and offers hope for future generations.” The President Isaac Herzog calls it “an anchor of stability” in the region.

However, today some Israelis are angrily remembering Jimmy Carter’s criticisms of their country after he left office while Palestinians praise him for his early support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

"In the 44 years since the end of his term, Carter has steadily declined in his antisemitic stances," writes Israel Hayom journalist Ariel Kahana on X. “He has brought our name into disrepute around the world.”

Carter stirred up controversy with his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which likened Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa’s former system of enforced racial segregation. Israel strongly rejects allegations of apartheid while Palestinian leaders often now use the term to describe the situation in Israeli-occupied territory.

"President Carter will be remembered by the Palestinian people as the first US president to advocate for the freedom of Palestine and the first to warn about Israeli Apartheid," says Ambassador Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK on social media.

Meanwhile, former US diplomat Aaron David Miller relates that, "Carter told me that there was nothing he regretted more [than] not being able to move forward on Israeli-Palestinian peace."

Image source, Reuters

The signing of the Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel was considered a triumph of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Peace in the Middle East was a key focus for Carter, and the then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was keen to recover territory and establish better relations with the West, including the US.

In 1978 Carter invited Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, to the presidential retreat Camp David.

After nearly two weeks of negotiations, the three leaders signed the Camp David Accords, which resulted in the first recognition of Israel as a state by a major Arab country.

However, the accomplishment was incomplete, laying down principles for peace in the region but failing to resolve the Palestinian question.

Image source, Corbis/Getty Images

Jimmy Carter was the first US president to be born in a hospital.

The eldest of four children, he was delivered on 1 October 1924 in the small town of Plains, Georgia. His father was a peanut farmer and his mother worked as a nurse at the hospital he was born in.

Hospital births began to increase starting in the 1920s, but most children were born at home at the time of Carter's birth.

Carter went on to become the longest-lived president in US history, celebrating his 100th birthday in October 2024.