Kamala Harris (00:02):
Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, Leader Schumer, Leader Jeffries, members of Congress, and distinguished guests, it's an honor to be with you this afternoon, and to Jack, Chip, Jeff, Amy, and Jason, and all the other members of the Carter family. On behalf of the American people, Doug and I offer our deepest condolences.
(00:29)
Being with you today, I'm reminded of the enduring words of a favorite hymn. "May the works I have done speak for me." Today, we gather to celebrate the life of a man whose works will echo for generations to come. A man from Plains, Georgia, who grew up without electricity or running water and served as the 39th President of the United States of America and lived every day of his long life in service to the people, President James Earl Carter Jr.
(01:19)
So I was in middle school when Jimmy Carter was elected president, and I vividly recall how my mother admired him, how much she admired his strength of character, his honesty, his integrity, his work ethic and determination, his intelligence and his generosity of spirit.
(01:52)
We have heard much today and in recent days about President Carter's impact in the four decades after he left the White House. Rightly so. Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leaves an extraordinary post-presidential legacy, from founding the Carter Center, which has helped advance global human rights and alleviate human suffering, to his public health work in Latin America and Africa, to his tireless advocacy for peace and democracy… Of his time.
(02:50)
He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy. He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection, and more than doubled the size of America's national parks, including protecting our beloved redwoods in my home state of California. He was a president who, between the years of 1977 and 1981, appointed more Black Americans to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined, and appointed five times as many women.
(03:45)
And in the wake of Watergate, Jimmy Carter passed historic ethics legislation to help rebuild America's faith in government. Jimmy Carter as president was also a respected global leader. To be sure the years of his presidency were not without international crises or challenges, but his legacy of global leadership is well established. In Asia, he instituted full diplomatic relations with China, which he would later call one of the most historically significant accomplishments of his presidency. And his legacy lives on in the Middle East because do recall in the decades before Jimmy Carter became president, Israel and Egypt had been at war numerous times. Few thought peace could be achieved between them. Yet Jimmy Carter did that.
(04:53)
Through his persistence and perseverance, through his unshakable belief in the power of American diplomacy, he secured the Camp David Accords, one of the most significant and durable peace treaties since World War II. And throughout the world, Jimmy Carter elevated the role of human rights in America's foreign policy priorities and uplifted the importance of civil society in doing that work.
(05:36)
Jimmy Carter was a forward-looking president with a vision for the future. Consider his establishment of the Department of Energy in 1977 which anticipated the central role it would play in addressing the climate crisis, his creation of FEMA in 1979 which enabled our nation to mobilize a national response to disasters which has helped countless communities rebuild and recover, and his founding of the Department of Education later that year which elevated public education institutions and increased national standards for the education of America's children and future leaders.
(06:35)
Jimmy Carter was that all-too-rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace. Recall the stories from the 1976 campaign about how he slept in the homes of his supporters to share a meal with them at their table and to listen to what was on their minds, how on their first trip for Habitat for Humanity, Jimmy and Rosalynn rode the bus with the other volunteers. And when the group stopped for the night to stay at a local church, Jimmy and Rosalynn gave their private room to a young couple who had put off their honeymoon to join the trip. And with the other volunteers, they then slept on the floor of the church basement.
(07:41)
And then of course, his work to eradicate the vicious Guinea worm disease that once disabled millions of people a year. It was one of the Carter Center's greatest triumphs. And Jimmy Carter, of course, given his nature, attributed its success not to his own leadership, but to the thousands of everyday Africans who were on the ground doing the work.
(08:12)
Throughout his life and career, Jimmy Carter retained a fundamental decency and humility. James Earl Carter Jr. loved our country. He lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world better than he found it. And in the end, Jimmy Carter's work and those works speak for him, louder than any tribute we can offer. May his life be a lesson for the ages and a beacon for the future.
(09:05)
May God bless President Jimmy Carter and may God bless the United States of America.