Jimmy Carter's 6-Day State Funeral Begins With Georgia Motorcade

The 39th president's casket is bound for Atlanta and, later, Washington.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Jimmy Carter ’s long public goodbye began Saturday in south Georgia where the 39th U.S. president’s life began more than 100 years ago.

A motorcade with Carter’s flag-draped casket began at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, where former Secret Service agents who protected the late president were serving as pallbearers and walking alongside the hearse as it left the medical center’s campus.

The Carter family, including the former president’s four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, are accompanying their patriarch in a procession that will take his remains through his beloved hometown of Plains and past his boyhood home on its way to Atlanta.

Carter died at his home in Plains on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

Families lined the procession route in downtown Plains, near the historic train depot where Carter headquartered his presidential campaign. Some carried bouquets of flowers or wore commemorative pins bearing Carter’s photo.