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Jimmy Carter celebrated at funeral services in Washington, D.C.

The flag-draped casket bearing the remains of former President Jimmy Carter lies in the Capitol Rotunda during a memorial service at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, in Washington, D.C.
Maansi Srivastava for NPR
The flag-draped casket bearing the remains of former President Jimmy Carter lies in the Capitol Rotunda during a memorial service at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, in Washington, D.C.

Members of Congress, the Supreme Court and other dignitaries paid their respects to the late President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday afternoon.

Carter, who died Dec. 29 at age 100, was transported to the Capitol by a horse-drawn cassion after arriving from Atlanta.

Vice President Harris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson delivered eulogies and lay wreaths.

The service also included an invocation from Chaplain of the Senate Barry Black and a benediction from the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, Margaret Kibben.

While Carter's four-plus decades out of office were marked by humanitarian efforts around election monitoring and tackling global public health issues, his time in Washington was marked by a tumultuous economy and international conflict, and this left him unpopular with an American public distrustful of the federal government.

State funeral events

Carter's remains were lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center ahead of three days of state funeral rites in D.C.

On Tuesday morning, the casket carrying the 39th president left the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, where thousands of mourners paid their respects over the weekend. It traveled to Dobbins Air Reserve Base before boarding Special Air Mission 39 to Joint Base Andrews.

Carter's casket left Joint Base Andrews Tuesday afternoon and traveled to the U.S. Navy Memorial, paying tribute to his time in the service as a lieutenant who worked on nuclear submarines.

Members of the Carter family walked behind the horse-drawn cassion as it proceeded to the Capitol. Carter's grandchildren served as honorary pallbearers.

Some members of the public could be seen braving the wintry weather in Washington to pay their respects to the president along the route.

The funeral procession was designed to mirror the 39th president's inaugural parade, where Carter and his family walked from the Capitol to the White House on Jan. 20, 1977.

Members of the public are invited to pay their respects from 6 p.m. until midnight Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday through 7 a.m. Thursday, when Carter's remains will travel from the Capitol to Washington National Cathedral for his National Funeral Service.

Carter's remains will return to Georgia Thursday afternoon for a private service at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where Carter taught Sunday School well into his 90s, before he's buried at the family home next to his wife, Rosalynn Carter.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Corrected: January 7, 2025 at 2:32 PM CST
A previous version of this story included a photo of the U.S. Capitol with an incorrect caption.
Corrected: January 7, 2025 at 2:32 PM CST
A previous version of this story included a photo of the U.S. Capitol with an incorrect caption.
Corrected: January 7, 2025 at 2:32 PM CST
A previous version of this story included a photo of the U.S. Capitol with an incorrect caption.
Stephen Fowler
Stephen Fowler is a political reporter with NPR's Washington Desk and will be covering the 2024 election based in the South. Before joining NPR, he spent more than seven years at Georgia Public Broadcasting as its political reporter and host of the Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, which covered voting rights and legal fallout from the 2020 presidential election, the evolution of the Republican Party and other changes driving Georgia's growing prominence in American politics. His reporting has appeared everywhere from the Center for Public Integrity and the Columbia Journalism Review to the PBS NewsHour and ProPublica.
Barbara Sprunt is a producer on NPR's Washington desk, where she reports and produces breaking news and feature political content. She formerly produced the NPR Politics Podcast and got her start in radio at as an intern on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered and Tell Me More with Michel Martin. She is an alumnus of the Paul Miller Reporting Fellowship at the National Press Foundation. She is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania native.