Jimmy Carter Is Being Mourned In His Tiny Hometown And Around The World

Tributes to former President Jimmy Carter are pouring in from his small hometown of Plains, Georgia, and around the world.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Johnny Jones found out about Jimmy Carter’s death within a matter of minutes. That’s how it works in a small town, even for a former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner known throughout the world.

“Somebody texted my wife and told her about it — that’s when I found out,” Jones said Monday, a day after the 39th president died at the age of 100, surrounded by family in the one-story house he and his late wife, Rosalynn, built before he launched his first political campaign more than 60 years ago.

“His presence here in Plains has really boosted the morale of everyone who lives here,” said Jones, 85, as he recalled warm exchanges with “Mr. Jimmy” and “Ms. Rosalynn,” who died in November 2023.

Indeed, the Carters put this town of fewer than 700 people — not much bigger than when Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924 — on the world stage. His remarkable rise to the White House, landslide defeat in 1980 and rehabilitation thereafter as a freelance diplomat and global humanitarian were reflected Monday in tributes from Plains’ residents and around the world.

Not far from where Jones sat on his front porch, black ribbons hung alongside U.S. flags flying in front of the souvenir shops and cafes that make up the nucleus of Plains’ main street, which spans just a few blocks from Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — the old train depot — to where the family once operated its peanut warehouses. TV cameras and news trucks lined the street that runs in front of the old gas station where the former president’s late brother, Billy Carter, once would hold court with national journalists who covered his older brother.