Former president Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday is on 1 October. His supporters didn’t want to wait that long to throw a party.
A parade of Georgia luminaries on Tuesday lit up the venerable Fox Theater on Peachtree Street. In a city that boasts new, swanky modern glass and steel venues like the Cobb Energy performing arts center or the Eastern befitting the city’s rising prominence, organizers chose Atlanta’s oldest concert hall to celebrate Carter’s centennial.
Jimmy Carter is four years older than the Fox Theater.
“Not everyone gets 100 years,” said Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson and 2014 nominee for governor of Georgia. “But when someone does and uses that time to good, it’s worth celebrating.”
The event was almost entirely devoid of maudlin sentiment. Video testimonials by Jon Stewart, Bob Dylan and others, were splashed across a screen, interspersed by images of famous musicians of the period visiting the White House.
Every living president except Trump sent a message of congratulations and well-wishing.
Headliners included five-time Grammy award winner Angélique Kidjo of Benin, BeBe Winans and Carlene Carter – no relation to the former president.
Carter, a Democrat, was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and is the longest-lived US president. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel peace prize for what the committee said was “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.
“When my mother, June Carter, and her husband, Johnny Cash, went to visit him at the White House, I was pretty jealous, as I thought so highly of him even back then,” said Carlene Carter, 68. “Both he and June had suggested more than once that we were, in fact, kin, and the fact that both he and mom had that Carter ‘sparkle’ makes me think that they were related. When Jimmy Carter was our president, it was evident to me that he only wanted the best for our country and for all humankind. I look at him as a very special, spiritual soul, so when people ask if we’re related, I always respond, ‘I hope so.’”
In his video message, Stewart said: “He has these ideals, and he executes them. Personally.
“It’s a lesson in living your life with intention.”
Dave Matthews in a happy birthday message played on the screen, said: “You were definitely the first rock’n’roll president.”
With the choice of The Road Home in the first refrain by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s choral performance, presenters quietly acknowledged the heartbreak usually avoided in polite conversation around here: that the end of Carter’s life is imminent.
Carter is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia, and has been since February 2023, 578 days ago. A National Institutes of Health analysis noted that the average stay in hospice is about 17 days. Carter’s wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died last year after a few days in hospice.
Last month, he told his grandson Jason Carter, “I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala.”
“As I’m sure you know, my grandfather wishes he could be here tonight,” Jason Carter said on Tuesday. Georgia Public Broadcasting plans to play the concert on Jimmy Carter’s birthday in a couple of weeks. “I will guarantee to you that he will be in front of the TV, watching,” the younger Carter said.
Many of the performing artists, including rock group Drive-By Truckers, Allman Brothers member Chuck Leavell, and The B-52s have Georgia ties.
The B-52s formed in Athens, Georgia, while Carter was campaigning for president in 1976. He was 52. Vocalist Fred Schneider was 25. The B-52s held their farewell concert last January at the Fox.
The event raised money for the Carter Center in Atlanta, which promotes health and advocates for democracy around the world.
Most recently, the Carter Center, in conjunction with other advocacy organizations for international democracy, released a set of models for genuine elections – a set of specific steps that government leaders and democracy advocates can take to help strengthen democracy.
Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Center 42 years ago.
