ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers are pushing for a Congressional Gold Medal to honor former President Jimmy Carter.
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop introduced the resolution on Tuesday, and it has been co-sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans from Georgia’s Congressional delegation.
The bill aims to honor Carter’s lifelong dedication to human rights, diplomacy and humanitarian efforts and for his service to the nation.
Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
In the last decades of his life, Carter was often described as perhaps the greatest ex-president. He regarded it as a backhanded compliment.
“It bothered him to hear that,” said Bert Lance, a close friend who worked in Carter’s state and federal administrations. “He and Rosalynn thought he accomplished a lot as president.”
“Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have done more good things for more people in more places than any other couple on the face of the Earth,” said President Bill Clinton when awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.
In 1982, Carter became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University and founded The Carter Center. It wasn’t until June 2019 that the former president was granted tenure at Emory University after teaching there for 37 years.
In 1986, the Carters cut the ribbon on the center’s permanent facilities along with the adjoining Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum (collectively known as the Carter Presidential Center) along the John Lewis Freedom Parkway.
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On hand for the center’s dedication was Carter’s presidential successor, Former President Ronald Reagan, along with his wife Nancy Reagan.
Carter’s vision of the presidential center was as a peaceful place, like Camp David, “where seemingly unresolvable international conflicts could be worked out through mediation ... (with) a policy center where scholars could seek solutions to issues of human rights, arms control, hunger, health, environment and world peace,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Howard Pousner wrote in 1986.
The Carter Center has spearheaded the international effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease, which is poised to be the second human disease in history to be eradicated.
Under Carter’s leadership, The Carter Center sent 107 election-observation missions to the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
Channel 2 Action News was the only Atlanta television station there when Carter received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in 2002. He was awarded the prestigious award “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
During his acceptance speech, Carter addressed human rights and acknowledged the courage of other Nobel laureates before him, including fellow Georgian, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The Nobel Prize also profoundly magnified the inspiring global influence of Martin Luther King Jr., the greatest leader that my native state has ever produced,” Carter said at the time.
He concluded his speech by asking all people to work towards peace instead of war.
“Ladies and gentlemen, war may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,” Carter said.
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