Jimmy Carter lies in state at US Capitol ahead of funeral

Former president died on December 29 at the age of 100

Former US president Jimmy Carter's coffin under the rotunda of the US Capitol, where he will lie in state until his funeral on Thursday. EPA

Former president Jimmy Carter was brought to Washington on Tuesday to lie in state at the US Capitol before his funeral this week.

Mr Carter died on December 29 at the age of 100. He served a single term as president from 1977-1981 and his life after leaving the White House was dedicated to humanitarian causes. He won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for human rights and undertaking peace negotiations.

The Carter family accompanied Mr Carter’s remains on a flight from Georgia’s Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Washington. A military band played Hail to the Chief, the personal anthem that accompanies US presidents, and troops fired a 21-gun salute after the coffin was taken out of a hearse.

The Democratic former president and Navy veteran was honoured on Tuesday by congressional leaders including Republicans, who have taken control of Capitol Hill with the start of the new congressional session.

At a sombre ceremony under the Capitol's rotunda, Vice President Kamala Harris said Mr Carter had “lived every day of his long life in service to the people”.

She paid tribute to “his honesty, his integrity, his work ethic and determination, his intelligence and his generosity of spirit” and said Mr Carter's legacy “lives on” in the Middle East, pointing to the peace deal forged under his administration between Israel and Egypt.

In a speech ahead of the ceremony, Senator John Thune, the new Republican majority leader, credited Mr Carter's “great American story”.

Mr Thune told of Mr Carter's humble beginnings as a peanut farmer, his legacy in the Middle East, and the philanthropic work he and his wife Rosalynn led with the Carter Centre and Habitat for Humanity.

“It was perhaps his post-presidency that came to define his legacy the most … during the four decades that followed he dedicated himself to making a difference to the causes of peace and human rights, and to improving the well-being of his fellow man,” said Mr Thune.

The setting Washington sun glimmered through the Capitol rotunda’s windows, at times casting a subtle glow down on to the mourners at Mr Carter’s wreath-laying ceremony.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said: “Today and tomorrow, Americans will brave the snow and cold temperatures to pay their respects to one of the most decent men ever to hold office of president.”

Many people stood in frigid temperatures to pay their respects to the late US leader, with long queues reported by local media.

Politicians and officials, some accompanied by their children, on Tuesday afternoon filed into the Capitol rotunda, where Mr Carter will lie in state until his funeral on Thursday. A brass band played Bridge over Troubled Water.

Mr Carter was elected president in 1976. During his time in office, he negotiated the breakthrough peace deal between Egypt and Israel. Two years later, after grappling with slow economic growth, stagflation and an energy crisis, he lost a bid for re-election after a group of Americans were taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries.

The former president and his wife founded the Carter Centre charity in 1982, with the organisation focusing on fighting diseases and monitored elections around the world.

He won the Nobel Prize after “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.

Mr Carter's wife died at the end of 2023 and they are survived by their four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Twelve former presidents have laid in state at the US Capitol, most recently George H W Bush. Other figures that have received the honour include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.