Washington Following a memorial service that was attended by members of Congress, his family, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other dignitaries, former President Jimmy Carter will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. He arrived on Tuesday.
Several members of Carter’s presidential Cabinet are anticipated to attend the eulogy speeches, which will be given by Harris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
Republicans and Democrats who were members of Congress during the Carter administration, as well as Carter’s White House personnel, have also been asked to pay their respects by the Carter family. said a U.S. military statement.
It further stated that Governors, members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, Supreme Court justices, and Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., had been asked to attend.
At approximately 4:30 p.m. ET, cannons were fired as Carter’s casket arrived at the Capitol in a horse-drawn caisson. His casket was to lie on the Lincoln catafalque, a platform that was constructed to hold President Abraham Lincoln’s casket and is now utilized for such ceremonies, then be put in the Rotunda for the service. The public can observe it from approximately 7 p.m. till midnight. The Rotunda is lined with monuments of Abraham Lincoln as well as former presidents, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford, whom Carter beat in 1976.
His remains will remain in state until Thursday morning, when a funeral will be held at the Washington National Cathedral in his honor.
Carter’s remains were transported from his presidential library in Atlanta to Joint Base Andrews, which is close to Washington, early Tuesday. From there, Carter and his family are riding in a motorcade to the U.S. Navy Memorial, which is located between the Capitol and the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The former president’s remains will be moved from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for the funeral procession to the Capitol at the Navy Memorial, which Carter approved in 1980 after Congress gave its approval. According to the military announcement, the procession is intended to replicate Carter’s inaugural parade on January 20, 1977, when he and his family chose to walk from the Capitol to the White House rather than take the presidential limousine.
“This was the first time a president walked the pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony,” according to the White House Historical Association, highlighting Carter’s intention to make the presidency accessible to all citizens.
According to his family, the funeral procession route on Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the Capitol is open to the public to commemorate and celebrate Carter’s life.
The late president will be carried into the Rotunda by ceremonial pall bearers upon his arrival at the Capitol, where his coffin will rest atop the Lincoln catafalque.
George H.W. Bush was the final president to lie in state at the Capitol in 2018.
On December 29, Carter, the longest-living former president, passed away at the age of 100. Since February 2023, he had been receiving hospice care in his Plains, Georgia, home.
Biden has proclaimed Thursday a national day of mourning and is scheduled to deliver a eulogy at the cathedral service on Thursday morning. Following the service, Carter will have a private burial when his body is flown back to Plains and taken to the Maranatha Baptist Church, where he spent decades teaching Sunday school.
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