On December 29th, 2024, former President Jimmy Carter died at age 100.
President Carter was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma which is a difficult-to-treat cancer he was fighting for 10 years, this considered what caused his death. While President Carter didn’t have the most productive Presidency, losing in a landslide to Former President Reagan in 1980 after the Iran Hostage Crisis, he has become quite admirable since his Presidency. He remained engaged in the political and social projects, establishing the Carter Center, building his presidential library teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, and writing numerous books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry. He emerged as a champion of human rights and worked for several charitable causes. Carter worked with Habitat for Humanity International, an organization that works worldwide to provide housing for underprivileged people. He went on television helping with Habitat home construction or providing his opinions on the issues of the day. He has been involved in mediating disputes between the U.S. State Department and the most volatile of foreign leaders, including Kim Il Sung of North Korea and Muammar Qaddaffi of Libya. In 1994, the former president assisted the U.S. government settle a tension-filled nuclear weapons dispute with North Korea. He helped Zimbabwe’s economic development and is rooted in President Carter’s principled leadership on human dignity. While he was president, he focused on health issues in Africa, achieving great success in efforts toward the eradication of guinea worm disease. His Carter Center was also instrumental in monitoring elections and promoting democracy across the continent. He also got rid of Ebola in Africa through the Carter Center. He said “we never became exerts on Ebola, we never treated anyone for Ebola, but people believed our radio commercials. We got our information on Ebola from WHO and the CDC.” Carter also noted that the epidemic is finally waning. “So now I’m happy to announce, which you already know, there are a few cases of Ebola left in Liberia. There are a few cases in other countries, in Guinea and Sierra Leone,” he said. Carter received the Nobel Prize in 2002. He received the award “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. Carter’s legacy grew after the 1980s loss. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote there are no second acts in American lives, but Carter’s public career after the White House is an exception.