President Jimmy Carter, America’s 39th president, has died at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Ga. A lifelong Democrat, he was the longest-lived president in American history; two years ago he went into hospice care.
Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924, served as a state senator in Georgia, as governor of Georgia, and as president from 1977 to 1981, after he had narrowly defeated Republican incumbent President Gerald Ford in November of 1976.
During his time as president, Carter had a large impact on the future of Alaska when he signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) into law on Dec. 2, 1980, just weeks before the end of his presidency; he had lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide in November of 1980.
ANILCA set aside over 100 million acres of land in Alaska to create national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, national wild and scenic river designations, national forests and more. It is the largest expansion of federal parks and woodlands in American history and more than doubled the size of the national park system.
ANILCA also expanded the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and created what is now known as Denali National Park and Preserve.
Carter thought of it as one of his major life achievements. Carter used the Antiquities Act to designate 56 million acres as 17 National Monuments through executive order.
“The passage of this act is one of the proudest achievements of my presidency and one that will endure through the centuries,” Carter wrote later.
“When I was president, I became thoroughly familiar with four maps. One was of Israel and the occupied territories; I knew it almost by heart. I also learned in detail about the Panama Canal Zone. Another focus was on a very small area of Iran. Finally, I learned the map of Alaska,” he wrote in an essay for the National Park Service.
“Just as memorable to me as Alaska’s map are the people who were deeply involved in the political contest over the future of her public lands. The debate really began as soon as Alaska became a state and culminated on December 2, 1980, when I signed the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act into law.
“This was the largest and most comprehensive piece of conservation legislation ever passed, involving fierce debate and compromise. One of the gifts to the nation bequeathed to us by the act was the 54 million acres of national park lands in Alaska,” he wrote on the 25th anniversary of ANILCA’s enactment.
Many Alaska lawmakers have noted that ANILCA’s “no more takings” clause has been repeatedly violated by agencies the federal government and, thus, some are not fans of the legislation.
Born and raised in Plains, Georgia, Carter attended high school in his home town, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, and joined the Navy’s submarine service. He then returned home to Plains after his father died and took over his family’s peanut farm. That is when he started getting involved with the Georgia Democratic Party, which led to his storied political career.
On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all of the draft dodgers from the Vietnam War. In his four years, he established the Department of Education and Department of Energy and was challenged by incidences such as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, inflation, a recession, and the Iran hostage crisis, after Iranian revolutionaries captured the American Embassy in Tehran, after which Carter imposed an embargo on Iranian oil imports. The crisis was resolved and the 52 hostages released as soon as Reagan was sworn in.
In February of 2023, his foundation, the Carter Center, announced that he was entering hospice care, and would not be receiving any more medical interventions for brain cancer. Usually people entering hospice care are assumed to have fewer than six months to live.
His wife Rosalynn Carter died Nov. 19, 2023. Jimmy Carter was the oldest living former U.S. president in U.S. history.
Carter had many humanitarian causes he cared about, such as Habitat for Humanity, human rights, ending discrimination and segregation. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his efforts to resolve international conflicts — efforts that at times vexed or were at odds with presidential administrations that succeeded him.
The Carters had three sons, who were grown by the time he became president, and one daughter — Amy Lynn — who lived in the White House from age 9 until the family moved back to Georgia in 1981.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter traveled to Alaska several times to enjoy the wilderness and to fish. Read an account of him fishing in Bristol Bay in 2017 at this link.
