The goodbye procession for devoted Christian president Jimmy Carter has begun, in his home state of Georgia.
A motorcade bearing Carter’s coffin has driven through his hometown in Plains, where as a child Jimmy worked on the family farm during the Great Depression.
Onlookers – including many born years after Carter’s presidential term ended – lined the roads to pay their respects to a man who put faith at the centre of his work.
Twelve-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock was born more than three decades after Carter left the White House. He told AP News that he had convinced his family to make the trip to Plains from Florida.
“He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish,” the young boy said. “We want to pay our respects."
The motorcade rolled to a stop outside Carter’s family farm. The National Park Service rang a bell 39 times, honouring his term as the 39th president.
Whilst state black limousines carry his body in procession, in life, Carter expressed his faith by opting out of a limousine parade at his inauguration, walking instead on foot.
Carter’s humble approach to the presidency is interwoven with his connection to Plains; after serving in the White House, Jimmy and his wife Roslynn returned to the house they had lived in prior to him becoming governor of Georgia.
On Tuesday, the coffin with be taken to Washington DC, where Carter’s state funeral will be held at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday