Egypt Daily News – On Thursday, January 9, the United States will hold a national funeral for former President Jimmy Carter, culminating in a tribute that lasted several days.
In the presence of President-elect Donald Trump, current President Joe Biden will deliver a memorial speech at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., an Episcopal church where funeral ceremonies were also held for Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.
This funeral will conclude a week-long mourning period during which Americans took a last look at Carter’s coffin, which was covered with the American flag in honor of the thirty-ninth president, who died on December 29 at the age of 100.
Jimmy Carter, a one-term president between 1977 and 1981, had asked Joe Biden to deliver the eulogy, as the president revealed in an interview with USA Today published on Wednesday, and that the two men had been friends for a long time and met for the last time in the year 2021.
Joe Biden praised Carter, saying that he was an upright man, and added, pointing to his head, “Carter did not see the world through his mind.”
In addition to about three thousand people, all four other living US presidents, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, will attend the funeral.
Carter is the first former US president to be over 100 years old, and he died in his hometown of Georgia.
Joe Biden had ordered flags to be flown at half-mast for 30 days as is customary, and therefore the flags will remain at half-mast during Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, which was criticized by the Republican president-elect.
However, Trump paid tribute to Jimmy Carter after his death was announced and on Wednesday paid his respects in Washington
It is worth noting that Carter’s farewell ceremony officially began on Saturday, with members of the Secret Service charged with protecting American presidents carrying his coffin and placing it in a hearse that toured the city of Plains, Georgia.
Crowds gathered on the sides of the roads in Plains to bid farewell and greet the procession, which moved slowly, while many waved American flags.
The black car carrying the coffin stopped in front of the farm where Carter’s family lived in his childhood, where its bell rang 39 times in honor of the thirty-ninth president of the United States.
The body of the former US President arrived on Tuesday at the Capitol building in Washington.
After the church ceremony, he will be buried at his home next to his wife, Rosalyn, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 77 years.
