The Carter Presidential Center has been open around the clock since Saturday. (Sam Gringlas/WABE)
Mike Gillam / Mike Gillam
For the last two days, the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta has been open at all hours while former President Jimmy Carter lies in repose.
In the first 24 hours, more than 10,000 came to say goodbye. And they kept coming — late into the night.
By 10 p.m. Sunday, the daytime crowds had thinned. Big lights illuminated mostly quiet security queues. Otherwise, the grounds turned dark and still. But even at the late hour, a steady stream of mourners crossed the wooded campus to pay their respects.
“Coming at night makes it really quite different than the daytime,” said longtime Carter Center staffer Laura Neuman. “It is very dark where his coffin is and it’s draped with an American flag. But because it’s dark out, it’s just spotlighted.”
Neuman volunteered to work the Saturday night shift into early Sunday. She says many have found the wee hours serene and the experience more intimate. She feels that way too and returned Sunday night.
“My quiet moment was tonight with my daughter as we went through to see President Carter,” Neuman said. “He’s really meaningful to our family, not just because I worked with him for 25 years, but because he helped bring my family together.”
Isabel and Laura Neuman paid their respects to former President Jimmy Carter late Sunday night. (Sam Gringlas/WABE)
The former president helped Neuman with her daughter’s adoption, and the Carters were among the first to hold baby Isabel when she arrived in Georgia from Guatemala. Now she’s a college sophomore.
“He brought us together,” Isabel said. “And that’s something that I think I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
Inside the Carter Center lobby, a military guard of honor has been keeping watch over the casket. When the guard changes at 11:30 p.m., service members in dress uniforms march silently in lock-step.
“It felt spiritual,” said Marcus Williams, wearing a button-up shirt and a winter hat. “It was moving to say the least. It brought back a lot of memories.”
In 1976, Williams was a young soldier stationed at Fort Leonard Wood. That fall, he cast his first vote for president. He voted for Jimmy Carter.
“I was just determined and I’m pleased that I came,” Williams said. “Just to give my thanks.”
Marcus Williams cast his first vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976. (Sam Gringlas/WABE)
Outside by the exit, a thick binder is filled with pages of tributes from visitors like Emily McDonald, who grew up in Albany, near the Carters’ hometown, Plains. She met them as a kid.
“Just thinking about all that’s happened in my own life since I was that little girl,” McDonald said. “I was thinking about all that’s happened in the world since then. I just felt really touched getting to see him one last time in that way.”
McDonald works in mental health, a cause the Carters championed. She hopes to build on their legacy. Just before midnight, McDonald leaned over the tribute book, her neat handwriting filling half a page.
“I was writing about how as a fellow Southwest Georgian how impactful it is to see someone from such a small and easily forgotten and glanced over part of the state truly change the world,” McDonald said.
Carter will return to that small corner of the state on Thursday, to be buried in the place he called home for most of a century.
