Former United States President Jimmy Carter He will be honored with a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, concluding nearly a week of national mourning for the former politician and humanitarian leader.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver the memorial address in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning, less than two weeks before he leaves office.

“He was a man of great character, courage, hope and optimism,” Biden said of his Democratic presidential running mate. statement On the occasion of Carter’s death in late December.

All of Carter’s living presidential successors attended Thursday’s funeral, including President-elect Donald Trump, who paid his respects before Carter’s casket the day before in the Capitol Rotunda.

regards I spilled Since his death on December 29 at the age of 100, political leaders and others have praised Carter for his dedication to public service and decades of humanitarian work.

Although he served only one term as president, from 1977 to 1981, the former peanut farmer from the US state of Georgia left a lasting legacy during his post-presidential career.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for the work his organization, the Carter Center, did to combat Guinea worm disease in Africa and monitor elections around the world.

He was also heavily involved in building homes through Habitat for Humanity, which earned him admiration from across the political spectrum.

Thursday concludes six days of patriotic ritual that began in Plains, Georgia, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died 22 months later in hospice care.

The ceremony continued in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., where Carter has been lying in state since Tuesday.

In a report from outside the cathedral on Thursday morning, Al Jazeera correspondent Alan Fisher said that Carter’s legacy – like the legacy of all US presidents – is not “black and white.”

In 1977, he succeeded in negotiating the Camp David Accords, which… Normal relationships “The relationship between Egypt and Israel…he also wanted to make the American government more compassionate and more considerate of ordinary people,” Fisher said.

Fisher added that other observers would note that Carter, while serving as president, did not condemn apartheid in South Africa or speak out against atrocities in El Salvador, among other foreign policy positions.

“So it gets complicated. But people will point to the work he did afterward with the Carter Center, when he tried to promote democracy, when he negotiated settlements in some of the hottest hot spots in the world,” Fisher said.

He declared Israel to be an apartheid state. He also talked about Nicolas Maduro. Although the American administration said that his first elections were fraudulent, [Carter said] And he won it in free and fair elections.

“He was always willing to speak out, and that is the legacy that will be forged here at the National Cathedral: a statesman, a man who did more for the White House than he did during his four years in it.”

Politicians, diplomats and other figures from around the world will attend Thursday’s funeral, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Bernice King, daughter of slain US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

“He set a very high standard for presidents, how you can use voice and leadership for issues,” Gates said of Carter in an interview with The Associated Press this week.

Bernice King also compared the former president to her father, saying the duo “showed us what is possible when your faith compels you to live and lead from a place of love.”

At the cathedral, Ted Mondale, the son of Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, is expected to read a eulogy his father wrote for Carter before his death in 2021.

Steve Ford, grandson of President Gerald Ford, will read a tribute from his grandfather, who died in 2006. Carter defeated Ford in 1976, but the couple and their first ladies became close friends, and Carter eulogized Ford at his funeral.

Mourners will also hear from Stu Eisenstat, who was a senior White House staffer under Carter, and 92-year-old Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor, congressman and UN ambassador during the Carter administration.

After morning services in Washington, D.C., Carter’s remains, those of his four children and extended family will return to his home state of Georgia for an afternoon funeral.

He will be buried on the family plot in a plot adjacent to Rosalynn, to whom Carter was married for more than 77 years.