STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Jimmy Carter goes home today. After a funeral here in Washington - which we will cover live on NPR - the former president's family takes his remains to a private service in his hometown. Almost two years ago, when the former president first went into hospice care, we placed a call to that hometown and reached Kim Carter Fuller.
KIM CARTER FULLER: I'm in Plains, Georgia. I'm looking out the window at downtown Plains.
INSKEEP: She is Jimmy Carter's niece, the daughter of his brother, Billy. She's lived her whole life in Plains.
CARTER FULLER: Downtown area is one main street. One block, basically, and my office is on that block.
INSKEEP: Well, good. That's great. You're at the center of the action, then, I suppose.
CARTER FULLER: Yes, I am.
INSKEEP: Her uncle Jimmy grew up nearby, went away to the Navy, and returned, built a house, the house that he and First Lady Rosalynn Carter called home right to the end. Carter ran for the state legislature and then won election as governor and then the presidency. Fuller was in college when he won the national election in 1976.
CARTER FULLER: When he won the presidency that night, Plains was swamped. And this was before, you know, good internet and all that kind of stuff. They were broadcasting on the sides of buildings downtown.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIMMY CARTER: This next couple of months, I'll be doing the best I can to prepare myself to be a president of which all of you will be proud. And I believe that I can make the kind of leadership in the White House that can tap the greatness that's in all of you.
(APPLAUSE)
INSKEEP: I'm just thinking about the power of that moment. This is someone being elected president and the first president from the South since before the Civil War. That must have been quite a moment to live through.
CARTER FULLER: It was. It was - I'm getting chill bumps just thinking about it. It was the type of moment that I think most of us, and I know me in particular, we kind of thought, well, this might never happen again. Same thing when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, we had a celebration down here downtown right outside where I am now, and we were able to celebrate with him.
INSKEEP: Do you recall what it was like when you saw him in the first months or years after his defeat?
CARTER FULLER: Yeah. He was very sad. My dad owned a service station here in town. And after my husband and I got married, my husband ran it. And I will never, ever forget the night that Uncle Jimmy was coming home or the afternoon after he lost, and he was coming home after...
INSKEEP: Leaving the White House, yeah.
CARTER FULLER: Yeah, leaving the White House. The phone rang in the station, and Daddy answered it. It was a phone on the wall. And I will always remember him saying, just come home. We're waiting for you. Just come home.
CARTER FULLER: And it was pouring down rain here. And the streets were just thronged with people. Just like they were the night that he won, people were here to welcome him back home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CARTER: Coming back to Georgia is a happy experience for me, and I thank God for it.
(CHEERING)
CARTER FULLER: And, you know, a lot of people, you know, have asked, why did they move back to Plains? Why did they do that? Well, that's one reason they did, because they knew if they had to go somewhere, it was time to come home.
INSKEEP: What do you think kept him going all those years traveling the world, getting involved in elections, getting involved in peace negotiations, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, writing book after book after book? Where do you think that energy came from?
CARTER FULLER: I think one thing that motivated him was the fact that he - deep in his heart I think he knew what people needed. And he just had such a strong sense of, I think, morality, compassion. He's a servant leader. And that servanthood just - he couldn't keep it closed off. He had to share it.
INSKEEP: If you were asked to sum him up in a few sentences, what would you say?
CARTER FULLER: Uncle Jimmy is a man who doesn't just talk about how he feels about his place in the world. He walks that talk. I've never known him to have empty words, so to speak. I've always known him to be a person who does what he feels is right. He is a deeply caring man, and he shows that care to not only his family but to the people around him. I just wish I had one-tenth of what he has inside of him.
INSKEEP: Kim Carter Fuller is executive director of Friends of Jimmy Carter and a niece of the late president. We spoke in 2023. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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