Jeenah Moon / Pool via AFP – Getty Images
By Alex Seitz-Wald | NBC NEWS
In a rare show of unity in these tumultuous times, every living American president filed into pews together Thursday to honor one of their own at the funeral for President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday.
Carter, who died late last month at 100 years old, is being remembered as a compassionate Christian and ahead-of-his-time progressive, despite having served a single term in the White House that was seen as a disappointment at the time.
Under the stained glass and stone filigree of the soaring neo-Gothic nave, family members and dignitaries recalled private kindnesses and public sacrifices, noting that Carter taught Sunday school at his church in Plains, Georgia, “every Sunday from World War II to Covid.”
“Carter was farsighted. He put aside his short-term political interests to tackle challenges that demanded sacrifice to protect our kids and grandkids,” Walter Mondale, who was Carter’s vice president, wrote in a eulogy before he died in 2021, which his son Ted read Thursday.
Living such a long life meant many of Carter’s contemporaries have already died, but several had prepared remarks for the occasion years ago.
Ted Mondale noted that “very few people in the 1970s had heard the term ‘climate change'” before he recalled how Carter pushed renewable energy while also noting he was a leader in women’s rights and racial justice.
Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime top adviser, said Carter “may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in its foothills, making the U.S. stronger and the world safer.”
Together in front rows were presidents and vice presidents, past and present, Republican and Democratic, several of whom have run bitter elections against one another.
Some, like Vice President Kamala Harris, sat quietly looking ahead. Others, like President-elect Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama, could be seen chatting and even laughing together.