Former President Jimmy Carter will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda next week, and President Joe Biden will be among the speakers delivering eulogies at the National Cathedral about the nation’s 39th president.
Because of the New Year’s holiday, the eight-day plan that organizers created will not begin until this weekend, The New York Times reported. Carter will be brought to Atlanta by motorcade from his hometown of Plains, Georgia, and lie in repose on Saturday and Sunday at the Carter Center, which was the home of his post-presidential humanitarian work.
Carter’s body will then be flown on Tuesday to Washington, where he will lie in state at the Capitol on the Lincoln catafalque in the Rotunda, according to The Associated Press.
Special Air Mission 39 arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, at 12:45 p.m. ET, where Carter’s remains will be transferred to a hearse, according to the news organization. Carter and his family will then travel by motorcade at 1:15 p.m. to the U.S. Navy Memorial, where his remains will be transferred from the hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for a funeral procession to the U.S. Capitol at 2 p.m.
Carter will be carried by military body bearers into the Rotunda, where at 3 p.m., members of Congress will pay their respects during a service.
Carter will then lie in state, and the public can begin viewing their respects from 7 p.m. to midnight, the AP reported. His body will lie in state until it is transferred to the National Cathedral at 9:30 for a brief service. The formal service will begin at 10 a.m.
In addition to Biden, Jason Carter, the late president’s grandson and chairman of the board of the Carter Center, will speak at the National Cathedral.
Eulogies will also be read from two people who were close to Jimmy Carter but have since died, the Times reported. Former President Gerald Ford’s eulogy will be read by his son, Steve Ford. The other eulogy -- by Carter’s running mate in 1976 and 1980, Walter Mondale -- will be read by his son, Ted Mondale, according to the newspaper.
Gerald Ford, who lost to Carter in the 1976 presidential election, died in 2006. Mondale died in 2021.
After the service at the cathedral, Carter will be returned to Georgia on a military plane for interment, the Times reported.
His family will travel by motorcade at 11:15 a.m. to Joint Base Andrews, where they board Special Air Mission 39 at 11:45 a.m. It will arrive at Fort Moore, Georgia, at 2 p.m. According to the AP, Carter and his family will travel by motorcade to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.
A private funeral service will be held at 3:45. A private interment will be held at the Carter residence in Plains at 5:20 p.m.
Carter, who was a one-time Georgia governor and a peanut farmer from Plains, was elected to office following the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Carter ran for re-election against Ronald Reagan in 1980 but lost to the former actor and governor of California.
Carter will be afforded the honor that only a handful has received in the country’s history. To lie in state is an honor reserved for “government officials and military officers,” of which Carter was both.
What does it mean to lie in state? Here’s a look at who is eligible and who has been given that honor.
Who is eligible to lie in state or in honor?
According to the Architect of the Capitol, a congressional resolution or approval by congressional leadership is necessary for a person to lie in state or lie in honor at the Capitol.
What is the difference between lying in state and lying in honor?
Government officials or military leaders lie in state. Private citizens lie in honor.
Where does the casket rest in the Capitol?
The casket is placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol. The Rotunda is a circular room in the center of the building that sits directly beneath the Capitol dome, according to the Architect of the Capitol website.
It is 96 feet in diameter and rises 180 feet from the floor to the canopy. The website says the volume of the Rotunda is around 1.3 million cubic feet.
For those lying in state, the casket rests on the catafalque or a wooden structure that holds a coffin.
According to the Architect of the Capitol, since 1865, most services have used the catafalque that was constructed to hold Abraham Lincoln’s coffin.
Who has either lain in state or lain in honor in the Capitol?
Here is a list of those who have either lain in state or lain in honor in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol:
Lain in state
Henry Clay
Abraham Lincoln
Thaddeus Stevens
Charles Sumner
Henry Wilson
James Abram Garfield
John Alexander Logan
William McKinley
Pierre Charles L’Enfant
George Dewey
Unknown Soldier of World War I
Warren Gamaliel Harding
William Howard Taft
John Joseph Pershing
Robert Alphonso Taft
3 Unknown Soldiers of World War II and the Korean War
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Douglas MacArthur
Herbert Clark Hoover
Dwight David Eisenhower
Everett McKinley Dirksen
J. Edgar Hoover
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Hubert Horatio Humphrey
Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam Era
Claude Denson Pepper
Ronald Wilson Reagan
Gerald R. Ford, Jr.
Daniel K. Inouye
John McCain
George H.W. Bush
John R. Lewis
Robert J. Dole
Harry Reid
Lain in honor
Jacob Joseph Chestnut
John Michael Gibson
Rosa Parks
Billy Graham
Officer William F. Evans
Officer Brian D. Sicknick
Hershel Woodrow Williams
