A statue of former President Jimmy Carter stands on the state Capitol grounds in Atlanta. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder (file photo)
Flags will be at half-staff across Georgia and the United States for the next month in honor of former President Jimmy Carter, the only U.S. president to hail from Georgia.
Carter died Sunday at 100. His death sparked a wave of fond remembrances across the nation, but nowhere more intensely than in his own state, where he rose in power from a peanut farmer in rural south Georgia to a state senator to Georgia’s 76th governor and eventually the nation’s 39th president.
After losing his re-election bid, Carter returned to Georgia and his hometown of Plains in 1981, and for many Peach State leaders, the work in his remaining decades outshone his time in the Oval Office and cemented his legacy as a man devoted to serving others.
“I know of no man in his post presidency who has had a greater impact on humanity than President Carter,” said Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat. “His selfless service to mankind is unparalleled, as was his humbleness and fortitude.”