The 39th President of the United States celebrates his 100th birthday October 1st.
DALLAS — On the website for The Carter Center, you can upload a photo of yourself and watch as it is added to a mosaic celebrating President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. And, if he gets his wish for at least a few more days, Carter will celebrate by casting one more Presidential vote.
James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia where he went from U.S. Navy submariner to peanut farmer to Georgia Governor to President of the United States in 1977.
Initially defined by a one-term presidency, high inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis, he is now the longest-living former President and more defined by what he did after he left office.
The Carter Center, founded by Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter in 1982, has worked to “wage peace, fight disease, and build hope” around the world.
“I think the two words that I would like to have describe me is I kept the peace and I did all I could to promote human rights,” he told WFAA in an interview in 2014 when he visited Dallas on his 90th birthday to help build homes with Habitat for Humanity. “We never fired a bullet. We never dropped a bomb. We never launched a missile while I was in the White House.”
Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota, country music entertainers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood were among more than a thousand volunteers continuing to build homes in Carter’s honor: the Habitat for Humanity effort part of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
“I think his whole life he understood that work ethic is gonna get you the result you want,” said Brooks. “And I think he passes that down to all of us.”
President Carter has been in hospice care for the last 19 months. He was last seen in public at the funeral for his wife Rosalynn last November. But, as a celebration of his life is broadcast Tuesday night on Georgia Public Television, his family says he wants to live at least another 14 days.
Early voting in Georgia begins October 15, and he wants to cast one more vote for President.
“I’ve had a glorious and very lucky life,” he told WFAA in 2014.
And in celebration of that life, at the White House today a “100” in numbers five feet tall and holding a banner reading “Happy Birthday President Carter” sits on the north lawn.
“Mr. President, on behalf of the entire Biden family and the American people, happy 100th birthday,” President Biden said in a video message on The Carter Center website. “Mr. President you have always been a moral force for our nation and the world,” Biden said while standing in front of Carter’s presidential portrait at the White House. “Your commitment to a better world and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us,” Biden said. Presidents Obama, Clinton, and George W. Bush also sent video messages to the 39th President.
Mr. Carter is expected to mark his birthday with family at his side in Plains, Georgia in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the 1960s.