'Our county ignored Africa,' Jimmy Carter said. He didn't

FILE - A girl holds a portrait of US President Jimmy Carter in a market in Lagos, Nigeria, March 31, 1978, the day of his arrival for a state visit, the first to Africa by an American president. FILE - Former South African President Nelson Mandela, left, and former US President Jimmy Carter hold HIV-positive babies at the Zola Clinic in Soweto, March 7, 2002.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to make a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa. He once called helping with Zimbabwe's transition from white rule to independence "our greatest single success." And when he died at 100, his foundation's work in rural Africa had nearly fulfilled his quest to eliminate a disease that afflicted millions, for the first time since the eradication of smallpox.