Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to former President Jimmy Carter as his casket was laid inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda on Tuesday, remembering the 39th commander-in-chief for his humility, commitment to diversity, and revolutionary actions to advance environmental policies.
America’s first female, first Black woman, and first South Asian vice president said the works of President Carter, who died at 100 years old on Dec. 29, will “echo for generations to come.”
“Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leaves an extraordinary post-presidential legacy,” said Harris, who praised his legacy of advancing “global human rights” and alleviating “human suffering” and his “tireless advocacy for peace and democracy around the globe.”
Harris recalled being a middle school student during Carter’s presidency. “I vividly recall how my mother admired him; how much she admired his strength of character, his honesty, his integrity, his work ethic and determination, his intelligence, and his generosity of spirit.”
The vice president, who Carter notably wanted to stay alive long enough to vote for in the 2024 presidential election in November, celebrated the former president’s historic diversity appointments to the federal bench. Harris acknowledged, “He was a president who, between the years of 1977 and 1981, appointed more Black Americans to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined, and appointed five times as many women.”
Vice President Harris noted that President Carter was also forward-thinking when he created the Departments of Education and Energy, with which he “elevated public education institutions and increased national standards for the education of America’s children and future leaders” and was “the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy.”
Harris also praised President Carter’s global leadership while acknowledging his presidency was “not without international crises or challenges.” Carter brought peace between Israel and Egypt through diplomacy when “few thought peace could be achieved,” said the vice president. Even when he achieved feats like eradicating the Guinea worm disease through his Carter Center, Harris reflected that the former president, “given his nature, attributed its success not to his own leadership, but to the thousands of everyday Africans who were on the ground.”
“Jimmy Carter was that all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” said Vice President Harris. “And in the end, Jimmy Carter’s work and those works speak for him louder than any tribute we can offer.”
She concluded, “May his life be a lesson for the ages and a beacon for the future.”
Carter, while dying of cancer, cast his ballot in October 2024 for Kamala Harris in the presidential election during early voting in Georgia. As his son, Chip Carter, recalled to AP, “I asked him … if he was trying to live to be 100, and he said, ‘No, I’m trying to live to vote for Kamala Harris.’”
