Jimmy Carter’s funeral will gather all 5 living presidents at Washington Cathedral: Live updates

On By Littum

Victor Mather

President Biden declared Thursday a national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

When Jimmy Carter died on December 29, President Biden declared that this Thursday would be observed as a national day of mourning. He called on Americans to “gather that day in their respective places of worship to commemorate” Mr. Carter.

Mr. Biden also orders executive departments and agencies to be shut down for the day, with some exceptions, including national security concerns. The Postal Service has suspended mail delivery and closed post offices, and the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will also be closed Thursday.

The last national day of mourning for a president was in December 2018, following the death of George HW Bush. The custom has a long history. The government shut down on 1 June 1865 for a day of “humiliation and sorrow”, six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed. Citizens were asked to gather in “their respective places of worship” to remember the fallen president.

Presidents who died in office after Lincoln were also honored, including James Garfield and Franklin Roosevelt. Lyndon Johnson’s first presidential proclamation announced a day of mourning for John F. Kennedy, three days after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

More recently, relatively routine deaths of former presidents have also been marked by a day of mourning, including for Dwight Eisenhower in 1969, Harry S. Truman in 1972, Johnson in 1973 and Richard Nixon in 1994. Ronald Reagan was honored in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007.

Other notable figures have been commemorated with a day of mourning. The priest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each honored after being assassinated in 1968.