Waging Peace: Reflecting on Carter’s Life After the Presidency

When former President Jimmy Carter exited the White House in 1981, he embarked on a new journey as a global diplomat and negotiator.

With the establishment of his nonprofit organization, the Carter Center, in 1982, the 39th president dedicated the subsequent 40 years to “waging peace” globally—building homes, ensuring fair elections, promoting health, and mediating conflicts, occasionally engaging directly with perilous leaders.

Let’s take a look back at Carter’s contributions after his presidency:

The Carter Center and Carter Work Project

In 1982, Carter, along with his late wife, Rosalynn Carter, founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, driven by a threefold global mission to safeguard human rights, resolve conflicts, and combat disease.

Since its inception, the Carter Center has undertaken peace and health initiatives in more than 80 countries across five continents, maintaining a sustained focus on Central and South America as well as mainland China.

Most recently, the Carter Center hosted the Forum in Honor of Jimmy Carter and the 45th Anniversary of U.S.-China Relations Normalization on January 9-10, 2024, in Atlanta.

Speakers at the event included U.S. Ambassador to China R. Nicholas Burns, who joined virtually, and Minister Jing Quan of the Chinese Embassy to the United States.

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The center also collaborates with nations to oversee electoral processes. Their efforts began in 1989 with a mission to Panama, where Carter declared the election of Gen. Manuel Noriega fraudulent. Since then, the center has carried out 125 full and limited election observation missions in 40 countries and three Native American nations.

This includes overseeing an audit of election results in Georgia and Arizona in 2020.

The Carter Center characterizes its mission as “waging peace,” partnering with numerous private and national organizations across the globe. This collaboration includes Habitat for Humanity, with which the center joined forces in 1984 to launch the annual Carter Work Project. Carter’s last involvement in this project was in October 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 95.

Following the military coup that ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994, Carter spearheaded a delegation tasked with negotiating Aristide’s return to power while averting a U.S. invasion.

In December 1994, he and the former first lady traveled to Bosnia with Carter Center staff to facilitate a four-month cease-fire.

Subsequently, in 1995, Carter journeyed to Africa to aid in further peace discussions, including mediating a cease-fire in Sudan that March.

In July 2007, he became a member of The Elders, a group of global leaders established by former South African President Nelson Mandela to address worldwide issues. Carter held a “front-line” role until May 2016.

He also traveled to Cuba in May 2002, delivering a televised address to the communist regime, and he met with the terrorist group Hamas in April 2008.

According to the Carter Center, he and his wife were invited by North Korean President Kim Il Sung to negotiate the de-escalation of tensions between North Korea, the U.S., and South Korea regarding the nuclear program of the communist nation.

After two days of discussions, Kim agreed to a freeze on his nuclear program in return for renewed dialogue with the U.S., leading to further discussions and agreements in October 1994 and June 1995. This framework remained intact until 2002.

The Carter Center returned to North Korea with several NGOs in April 1999 to enhance food security by increasing potato production. They procured 1,000 metric tons of potato seeds and supervised the planting process in May of that year.

Carter himself made a second trip to North Korea in August 2010 to negotiate the release of Aijalon Gomes, an American teacher who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegal entry into the country after serving seven months.

After two days of discussions, initiated at the invitation of North Korean officials with the approval of the White House, Carter secured Gomes’s release and obtained amnesty from Kim Jong Il, Chairman of the National Defense Commission.

Nobel Peace Prize and Other Awards

The former president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2002, for his “tireless efforts to find peaceful resolutions to international conflicts, promote democracy and human rights, and advocate for economic and social development.”

He was also awarded the U.N. Human Rights Prize in December 1998, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In August 1999, he and Rosalynn Carter received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Bill Clinton.

Carter was named a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in biography for his book, “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood,” in April 2002 and became a Grammy nominee in December 2014 when his book “A Call To Action” was a runner-up in the best spoken-word album category. Over his career, the former president authored 32 books.

From the fall of 2019 through early 2020, Carter was publicly embraced by Democratic presidential candidates as a party elder, and he and his wife celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary on July 7, 2023.

Rosalynn Carter passed away at the age of 96 on November 19, 2023, and Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100 on December 29, 2024.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.