Carter funeral service to be held at Washington national cathedral on Jan. 9
WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral at Washington National Cathedral will be held Jan. 9, featuring a eulogy by President Joe Biden and culminating more than a week of ceremonies and tributes, organizers said Monday.
Biden ordered the federal government to close Jan. 9 and declared it a national day of mourning.
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Because of the New Year’s holiday, the eight-day plan that organizers had long envisioned for Carter’s memorial services will not begin until later this week.
The former president’s body will be taken by motorcade on Saturday through his hometown of Plains, Georgia, to his boyhood home for a brief pause in front of his family’s farm.
The former president’s body will then be taken to Atlanta to the Georgia State Capitol for a moment of silence by Gov. Brian Kemp and other officials, and then transported to the Carter Center, the home of Carter’s post-presidential humanitarian work. It will lie in repose at the center for mourners to visit Saturday night, Sunday and Monday, according to a detailed schedule released by the U.S. military task force that organizes presidential funerals.
The body of Carter, who died at his home in Plains at 100 on Sunday, will be flown by presidential plane on Tuesday, Jan. 7, to Washington, where it will be taken to the U.S. Navy Memorial in honor of Carter’s service as a submariner. It will then be taken up to the Capitol, where the body will lie in state through Jan. 8, as have the bodies of several presidents going back to Abraham Lincoln.
The service at the cathedral will be the highlight of the remembrances. Other former presidents are expected to attend, but it was not clear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who has regularly denigrated Carter, would be invited or attend.
