WASHINGTON (RNS) — Scores of lawmakers and other dignitaries huddled together in the U.S. Capitol rotunda on Tuesday evening (Jan. 7) for a memorial service honoring Jimmy Carter, heaping praise on the late Democratic president before he lies in state over the next day.
Carter’s casket, draped in an American flag, arrived at the Capitol via horse-drawn caisson late Tuesday afternoon, completing its long journey northward from Carter’s home in Plains, Georgia. After service members outside offered a 21-gun salute that could be heard echoing across the rotunda’s cavernous walls, Carter’s remains were slowly walked into the building.
Once the casket was placed in the center of the room and members of Carter’s family took their seats, U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered an invocation.
“We proclaim your generosity to this nation and world for giving us the gift of someone with the ethical congruence to be salt and light to his generation,” Black prayed. “Lord, he made the world more palatable.”
A room packed with Washington’s most powerful looked on as he spoke, the bipartisan delegation a rare expression of unity in a historically polarized time. Among a crowd of senators nestled in one section …