A LIFE WELL LIVED
Theme Three: Partnership
This is Theme Three: PARTNERSHIP
It marks the conclusion of our three-part series, A LIFE WELL LIVED: Simply a Love Story!
Theme One: Character/Peacemaker
Theme Two: Visionary
Theme Three: PARTNERSHIP
We trust that you have been inspired by the story of Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States: by his character, his visionary mindset, and his partnerships.
Our wish is that his story has offered you a modicum of peace. We hope it has given you the courage to stay vigilant, as on Monday, inaugural day January 20, 2025 (which coincidentally is also the day we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), we will be facing the unpredictable future of the United States of America!
POST-PRESIDENTIAL WORK
PARTNERSHIP
The Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia
The Carter Center was founded by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in 1982 to:
Wage Peace; Fight Disease; and Build Hope in communities worldwide.
It has worked in more than 80 countries to resolve conflicts, advance democracy, protect human rights, prevent disease, and improve mental health care.
PARTNERSHIP
JASON CARTER
Grandson
Eulogy:
The Carter Center has 3,500 employees, but only a couple hundred in the United States. The rest are spread throughout the countries where we work: Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, Bangladesh. All of the Carter Center's programs are based on a respect, that same respect for the power of regular people, even if they are in tiny villages miles from anywhere else.
To give one example, we've all heard a lot lately about guinea worm disease. It's an ancient and debilitating disease of poverty, and that disease will have existed from the dawn of humanity until Jimmy Carter.
When he started working on this disease, there were 3.5 million cases in humans every year.
Last year there were 14.
And the thing that's remarkable is that this disease is not eliminated with medicine. It's eliminated essentially by neighbors talking to neighbors about how to collect water in the poorest and most marginalized villages in the world.
And those neighbors truly were my grandfather's partners for the last 40 years. And as this disease has been eliminated in every village in Nigeria, every village in Sudan or Uganda, what's left behind in those tiny 600 person villages is an army of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters, who have demonstrated their own power to change their world.
PARTNERSHIP
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity mourns the passing of Jimmy Carter.
President and Mrs. Carter led the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project for Habitat for Humanity for more than 30 years. Jimmy devoted one week each year to building homes for the poor in various countries.
Together, they have worked alongside over 108,100 volunteers who have built, renovated or repaired more than 4,447 homes in 14 countries, all while raising awareness of the critical need for affordable housing.
PARTNERSHIP
Rosalynn worked beside her husband on many of these efforts. In particular, she focused on reducing stigma and improving access to mental health care, particularly through her work with the Carter Center. She was a driving force in the mental health field throughout her public service career.
Rosalynn's and Jimmy's is a love story of a lifetime.
They were married on July 7,1946 in Plains, GA and were in love for 77 years until at Rosalynn's death on November 19, 2023 did they part (temporarily).
“The best thing I ever did was marrying Rosa,” Jimmy once said. “That’s the pinnacle of my life, the best thing that happened to me.”
FUN FACT: Jimmy and Rosalynn knew each other from the time he was three years old and she was only a day old.
Jimmy’s mother, Miss Lillian Carter, was a registered nurse and midwife. She delivered baby Rosalynn on August 18, 1927 for Rosalynn's mother, Frances “Allie” Smith, who was their neighbor. The next day, she brought her 3-year old son Jimmy to meet the baby, his new neighbor.
CONCLUSION:
CHARACTER, VISIONARY, & PARTNERSHIP
At his funeral, Country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon’s “Imagine”, a song Jimmy Carter requested before his death.
Of Interest: The day after the funeral services, in an article in the “Nation” on how “Imagine” became the refrain of Jimmy Carter’s funeral, John Nichols wrote that the late president celebrated the impact and influence of the song.
Nichols called the song a radical challenge to militarism, nationalism, capitalism, and the exploitation of religious differences for political purposes.
Imagine
by John Lennon
Imagine there's no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
The brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
To all the world.
With love,
Jimmy and Rosalynn
In his own words:
"I'd like to be remembered as someone who was a champion of peace and human rights."
- Jimmy Carter
