Funeral schedule announced for Jimmy Carter

ATLANTA, Ga. - The state funeral procession began Saturday morning for former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday.

The procession left Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus around 10:30 a.m. on its way to the former president’s boyhood home, where it arrived just before 11 a.m.

During a pause at the home, the National Park Service honored the late president with a salute and ringing of the historic farm bell 39 times.

Next, the procession left for Atlanta.

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Carter’s state funeral is a six-day series of well-choreographed events that have been in the planning for years – in fact, since 1986.

The proceedings will allow Georgians and the nation to pay their respects to the 39th U.S. president, the only one to ever hail from the Peach State.

Saturday’s full schedule of events:

• 10:15 a.m. – The Carter family arrives at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus.
• 10:20 a.m. – Carter’s remains are carried to the hearse by current and former special agents in charge from the United States Secret Service–Carter Protective Division.
• 10:30 a.m. – The motorcade departs Phoebe Sumter Medical Center and travels through Carter’s hometown of Plains. A flower drop location has been set up at the monument in the Americus downtown square on Highway 280.
• 11 a.m. – Carter and his family arrive at his boyhood home for a brief pause in front of the family’s farm. From there, the late president officially begins his final journey to Atlanta.
• 3 p.m. – The motorcade arrives in Atlanta and pauses at Georgia’s State Capitol for a moment of silence by Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, of the Georgia legislature and Georgia State Patrol troopers.
• 3:05 p.m. – The motorcade departs for the Carter Presidential Center.
• 3:45 p.m. – Carter’s remains are carried into the Carter Presidential Center during an arrival ceremony. A flower drop site is located at the Carter Center at the complex’s large entrance sign at 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., on the property’s northeast corner near the intersection of North Highland Avenue and John Lewis Freedom Parkway.
• 4 p.m. – A private service at the Carter Presidential Center.
• 7 p.m. – Lying in repose begins. Mourners are invited to come and pay their respects.

Sunday, Jan. 5-Monday, Jan. 6: The late president continues to lie in repose until 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. The public is invited to pay their respects throughout this time.

Tuesday, Jan. 7: Carter departs the Carter Presidential Center at 9:30 a.m. The late president and his family then travel to Dobbins Air Reserve Base at 10 a.m., where they will board Special Air Mission 39 to travel to Washington at 10:40 a.m.

Special Air Mission 39 arrives at t Base Andrews in Maryland, at 12:45 p.m., where Carter’s remains will be transferred with a ceremony to the hearse. Carter and his family will then travel by motorcade at 1:15 p.m. to the U.S. Navy Memorial, where his remains will be transferred from the hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for a funeral procession to the U.S. Capitol at 2 p.m.

Upon arrival at the U.S. Capitol, Carter will be carried by military body bearers into the Rotunda, where of Congress will pay their respects during a service at 3 p.m.

Carter will then lie in state while the military maintains a guard of honor. The public is invited to pay their respects from 7 p.m. to midnight.

Wednesday, Jan. 8: The late president continues to lie in state while the military maintains a guard of honor. The public is invited to pay their respects from 7 a.m. on Jan. 8 until 7 a.m. on Jan. 9.

Thursday, Jan. 9: Carter departs the U.S. Capitol at 9 a.m. The motorcade then travels to Washington National Cathedral for a brief arrival ceremony at 9:30 a.m., followed by the National Funeral Service at 10 a.m.

Upon conclusion of the service, Carter and his family will travel by motorcade at 11:15 a.m. to t Base Andrews, where they board Special Air Mission 39 at 11:45 a.m.

Special Air Mission 39 arrives at Lawson Army Airfield on Fort Moore, Georgia, at 2 p.m., where Carter’s remains will be transferred with a ceremony to the hearse. Carter and his family then travel by motorcade to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, arriving at 3:30 p.m., followed by a private funeral service at 3:45 p.m.

After the funeral service, the late president and his family will travel by motorcade at 4:45 p.m. to the Carter residence for a private interment at 5:20 p.m. The public is invited to line the motorcade route through Plains to Carter’s final resting place. Prior to interment, the U.S. Navy will conduct a missing man formation flyover in honor of Carter’s naval service and time as commander-in-chief shortly after the motorcade’s arrival at the residence.

Carter died Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, at the age of 100. Biden ordered a state funeral for the nation’s 39th president only hours after the Carter Center announced his ing.

More than a year ago, when the Carter Center announced its founder was entering hospice care, Biden said he’d been asked to deliver the eulogy.

Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972, and was serving his first term when Carter was elected president in 1976. Biden won the seat by upsetting the favored GOP incumbent J. Caleb Boggs. Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell assisted Biden in his winning campaign, and Caddell would also go on to serve as a consultant in the Carter istration.

Carter was still serving his one term as Georgia governor when Biden was elected to the Senate. He previously served as a Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967 and governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.

Exactly three years to the date of his inauguration into the governor’s mansion, Carter announced his candidacy for president of the United States. He would go on to win the Democratic nomination in 1976 and was elected on Nov. 2, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Gerald Ford. Biden was the first Democratic U.S. senator to endorse Carter in 1976.

The first - and still only - president from Georgia capped off the day by walking in the inauguration parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, something never seen from a president following an inauguration.

Carter’s rise to the White House ranks as one of the most unlikely political victories in U.S. history. He was virtually unknown to the country, and campaigned on a promise to never tell a lie.

Carter was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1977, but would only serve one term in office. He was defeated soundly in the 1980 election by Republican Ronald Reagan.

Biden’s presidency represents a turnabout, of sorts, for Carter’s political standing. His loss to Reagan prompted top Democrats to keep their distance, at least publicly, for decades after he left the White House.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not have close relationships with Carter, and long-shot presidential candidates who sometimes ventured to Plains over the years typically did so privately.

But as the Carters’ global humanitarian work and advocacy of democracy via The Carter Center garnered new respect, Democratic politicians began publicly circulating back to south Georgia ahead of the 2020 election cycle. And with Biden’s election, Carter again found a genuine friend and ally in the Oval Office.

Clinton spoke at Republican Richard Nixon’s funeral in 1994. Carter eulogized Ford in 2007. The two men had become close friends after their presidencies and had agreed the surviving president would pay tribute at the other’s funeral.

When George H.W. Bush died in 2018, fellow Republican Donald Trump attended as sitting president but the only former president to speak at Washington National Cathedral was the elder Bush’s son, George W. Bush.

A few months after taking office, President and Mrs. Biden visited Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter at their home in Plains.

Mrs. Carter died on Nov. 19, 2023, days after entering hospice care herself.

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