LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The 39th president of the United States has died at the age of 100. Jimmy Carter led America 1977 to 1981. President Biden was a senator during Carter's presidency. Here's part of what he said last night.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era with honesty and character, faith and humility. It mattered. But I don't believe it's a bygone era. I see a man not only of our times but for all times, someone who embodied the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away.
FADEL: At the Carter Center in Atlanta, people gathered to pay respects, including Michael Ritter (ph).
MICHAEL RITTER: He was a good man. There's a lot of divide in the world right now when it comes to different sides of politics, but there was no denying that that was a good man.
FADEL: After Carter left office, he remained involved in world politics, advocating for international peace, democracy and human rights. He entered home hospice care nearly two years ago. Kathy Lohr has this remembrance.
KATHY LOHR, BYLINE: Jimmy Carter was born in Plains in 1924 and spent his childhood on a farm just outside of this tiny southwest Georgia community. His father was a peanut farmer. His mother, Ms. Lillian, was a nurse.
STEVEN HOCHMAN: He was the first president of the United States that was born in a hospital.
LOHR: Steven Hochman with the Carter Center was a longtime assistant to the former president.
HOCHMAN: Other than Jimmy Carter, no person from the Deep South since the American Civil War had been elected president.
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JIMMY CARTER: My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president.
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LOHR: Growing up on the farm, Carter learned the value of hard work and determination. He qualified for the Naval Academy and became an engineer working on submarines, but he resigned from the Navy in 1953 after his father died. Back in Plains, he was elected to the state Senate and became the first Georgia governor to speak out against racial segregation. A lifelong Democrat, Carter was a political unknown when he began a national campaign in 1974 and was first referred to as Jimmy Who. The Carter Center's Hochman says a grassroots effort changed that.
HOCHMAN: He would campaign on the street corners, go to radio stations. And he had friends from Georgia - they were called the Peanut Brigade - that went out and did this person-to-person type of campaigning for him.
LOHR: The Peanut Brigade traveled to New Hampshire, Iowa and across the country, and told voters about the dependable Southerner who wanted to be president.
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J CARTER: I'll never tell a lie. I'll never make a misleading statement. I'll never betray the trust of those who have confidence in me. And I will never avoid a controversial issue.
LOHR: Carter was elected when the mood of the country was bitter and cynical in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. The man from Georgia struck out on a different course on his Inauguration Day. Historian Dan Carter says the president and his wife, Rosalynn, stepped out of the bulletproof limousine and walked to the White House to show their connection with the American people.
DAN CARTER: It was mainly an attempt to draw a distinction between what he saw as his people's presidency and the more imperial presidency of Richard Nixon.
LOHR: Among Carter's accomplishments, the Camp David Accords, which brought together the leaders of Israel and Egypt in 1978 to sign peace treaties on the White House Lawn.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the prime minister of Israel.
J CARTER: The dedication and determination of these two world statesmen have borne fruit. Peace has come to Israel and to Egypt.
LOHR: The accords led to a peace that was initially fragile but has strengthened and now held for decades. But Carter's most difficult challenge was the Iranian hostage crisis. Students stormed the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979 and took dozens of Americans hostage.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: This is ABC News "Nightline."
LOHR: People were glued to reports on the crisis for more than a year as Carter continued to negotiate for the release of the hostages. The administration also battled domestic problems, including an energy crisis and double-digit inflation. Carter held a series of meetings among his cabinet members, which resulted in a blunt television address in 1979 that came to be known as Carter's malaise speech.
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J CARTER: It's clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper, deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as president, I need your help.
LOHR: Carter established a federal energy policy and added the departments of Energy and Education. Still, he lost his bid for reelection by a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan. But on January 20, 1981, moments after President Reagan was sworn in, the remaining 52 hostages were released, and Carter was allowed to welcome them home.
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J CARTER: I had received word officially for the first time that the aircraft carrying the 52 American hostages had cleared Iranian airspace on the first...
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J CARTER: ...First leg of their journey home and that every one of the 52 hostages was alive, was well and free.
LOHR: The president and his wife opened the Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982. After leaving office, Carter became dedicated to promoting democracy, monitoring elections, building homes with Habitat for Humanity and eradicating disease in some of the world's poorest countries. In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Carter talked about his experiences in an interview with NPR in 2007.
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J CARTER: And for the last 25 years, my life could not have been more expansive and unpredictable and adventurous and gratifying.
LOHR: The former president said the best thing he did during his lifetime was marry his wife, Rosalynn. His biggest regret was not being able to free the hostages from Iran while he was president.
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J CARTER: I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages. And we would've rescued them, and I would've been reelected.
LOHR: As the longest living former president, Jimmy Carter engaged with the presidents who followed him. And as he grew older, Carter became more outspoken and candid. At a town hall meeting in Atlanta, he talked about the Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination.
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J CARTER: One of the major factors that I will have in my mind is who could beat Trump?
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J CARTER: Because I think it would be a disaster to have four more years of Trump.
LOHR: Carter was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2015, but he beat it. The former president's Christian faith played a driving force in his life up until his final days. He wrote more than 30 books, many about his faith. Jimmy Carter regularly taught Bible school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, and at 95, he reflected on the realization that he might be nearing the end of his life.
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J CARTER: And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.
LOHR: President Jimmy Carter loved Plains, Georgia. It's where he was born, where he felt most at peace and where he said he wished to be buried.
Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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