When Jimmy Carter entered hospice in February, his family feared he might have only days left to live. Eight months later, the 39th US president will celebrate his 99th birthday on Sunday.
The Carter Center – the Atlanta-based human rights organization that the former president founded with his wife, Rosalynn, shortly after he left the White House in 1981 – is celebrating the occasion in a unique way. More than 14,000 people have submitted birthday messages and pictures for a digital mosaic honoring Carter’s life and legacy, which has recently been displayed at famous Atlanta sites such as Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Hartsfield-Jackson international airport.
The project has offered thousands of people from around the world an opportunity to express their thanks to Carter, now the longest-living US president as well as a human rights champion and Nobel peace prize laureate.
“There’s so many people around the world, around the country, in this state that he touched,” said Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson and chair of the Carter Center’s board of trustees. “We wanted to find a way to sort of bring that idea together. We all share this really remarkable legacy in so many different ways.”
The homage represents a touching coda to the long life of Carter, who is “coming to the end”, his grandson said, acknowledging Carter’s decision to enter hospice earlier this year following a string of health struggles during the previous several years. In 2015, Carter was diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer that had spread to his brain. But he beat the cancer, and later recovered from several falls that had him in and out of the hospital in 2019.
“He has personally confronted the end in a number of contexts,” Jason Carter said.
Despite those earlier health challenges, Carter had managed to maintain his volunteering schedule with Habitat for Humanity, but the former president has now curtailed his public appearances. Rosalynn Carter is facing her own struggles, after announcing a diagnosis of dementia in May. Other than a recent surprise appearance at the annual peanut festival in their home town of Plains, Georgia, the Carters have maintained a low profile in recent months.
“He is still mentally there but really severely limited physically, and I think that’s frustrating for him, given how active he’s been for the rest of his life,” Jason Carter said. “This is bonus time for all of us.”
Carter’s family members did not expect that they would have the chance to celebrate his 99th birthday, and they plan to mark the occasion with a small family gathering in Plains. Jason Carter said his grandparents would make an appearance at the event, but he added, “They’re not in a position to really party as hard as they used to.”
The intimate family celebration feels like a fitting way to honor a man who still lives in the two-bedroom ranch house he built in 1961. Even after ascending to the highest echelons of power, Carter maintained a humble nature that endeared him to many over the years. In 2017, a video of Carter shaking hands with every fellow passenger on his commercial flight to Washington went viral.
“He has had this huge legacy, both as president and after,” Jason Carter said. “But he’s also maintained this identity and groundedness and down-to-earth nature that makes him approachable.”
Those people who feel like they can still relate to Carter are now helping shape his legacy through the digital mosaic project. In their messages, Carter’s admirers explain how his policies allowed them to go to college, gain US citizenship or simply feel more motivated to fulfill their civic duties.
“You were the first person I voted for,” a woman named Cathee wrote in her message. “You are a role model for us all.”
A man named Dave said in his message to Carter, “May your heart be filled with the warmth of the love you’ve given, the hope you’ve inspired, and the kindness you’ve shown. Your legacy is a beacon of light and a testament to your empathy.”
The question of Carter’s legacy has been a common topic of conversation in the past few years. New biographies have revisited and revised opinions of Carter’s presidency, which ended after just one term amid record-high inflation and a hostage crisis in Iran. The New York Times published reporting in March suggesting that one of Ronald Reagan’s political allies, the former Texas governor John B Connally Jr, attempted to prolong the hostage crisis in an effort to sabotage Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign.
Rather than carefully crafted obituaries written by journalists or political pundits, however, the mosaic provides testimonies from average citizens of the country Carter once led and the world he has sought to better.
“It’s really, I think, fundamentally a story of regular folks that do things to make the difference in their own lives and in their communities,” said Jason Carter.
After all, Jimmy Carter – born in 1924 in a house without plumbing in a town with a population of just 600 – was just a regular person once, too.
“Regular people in tiny towns or in small communities are the ones who transform the world,” Jason Carter said. “They’re the ones who make up the legacies that we have.”
