What Jimmy Carter Meant

America says farewell to a former president as winter storms blanket the Heartland

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Burying the Lede

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr., the 39th President of the United States, was honored at a state funeral today at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. President Joe Biden, who eulogized Carter during the ceremony today, declared Thursday, January 9, 2025 as a National Day of Mourning in America. This means that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed on Jan. 9,” except those necessary for “national security, defense, or other public need.” Flags will fly at half-staff for 30 days. All of the living presidents were in attendance, including president-elect Donald Trump as well as vice presidents Kamala Harris, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Mike Pence, and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

Carter’s Impact on the South

Flyover Country friend Jonathan Martin of Politico observed today, “Leading a cohort of next-generation Southern leaders in both parties, Carter grafted the region back on the national map by repudiating Jim Crow, finally extinguishing George Wallace as a political force and assembling a fearsome, if fleeting, biracial general election coalition. “He brought the South back into the mainstream, suddenly there was a legitimacy to being Southern,” said Curtis Wilkie, the longtime political journalist and Mississippian.”

Today, Rev. Andrew Young, a civil rights leader in Georgia (he was executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and, at 92, is one of the last living close confidants of Dr. Martin Luther King) and later served in Congress, as Ambassador to the United Nations, and as mayor of Atlanta delivered the homily today.