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Rosalynn Carter, mental health activist, humanitarian and former first lady, dies at 96

Rosalynn Carter, who as first lady worked tirelessly on behalf of mental health reform and professionalized the role of the president’s spouse, died Sunday at the age of 96, according to the Carter Center.

Rosalynn Carter passed away peacefully with family by her side at her home in Plains, Georgia, the center said in a statement.

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, said. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

The Carter Center announced Friday that the former first lady had entered hospice care. She was diagnosed with dementia in May. Her husband began home hospice care in February, following a series of hospital stays.

Jimmy Carter was defeated in a landslide by Ronald Reagan four years after being elected. His single term in the White House included forging a rare peace agreement between Israel and Egypt that continues to this day, but it was also marked by soaring inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. Through it all, Rosalynn was by his side, and often whispering in his ear.

The Carters redefined and revolutionized the post-presidency and, through their joint efforts, they worked on world peace and human rights on behalf of the Carter Center, a nongovernmental Atlanta-based organization founded to “wage peace, fight disease and build hope.”

First lady Jill Biden celebrated Rosalynn Carter’s life on Sunday, telling service members and their families at a Naval Station Norfolk holiday event, “The former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has just passed. And she was well known for her efforts on mental health and caregiving and women’s rights.”

“And so I hope that during the holidays you’ll … include the Carter family in your prayers,” Jill Biden said.

After leaving the White House, the couple traveled to hot spots around the world, including visits to Cuba, Sudan and North Korea, monitoring elections and working to eradicate Guinea worm disease and other neglected tropical diseases. Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

“The Carter Center is a shared legacy. She’s been there digging latrines right next to him,” said the Carters’ friend Jill Stuckey, a leader at Maranatha Baptist Church, where both Carters attended and where Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school.

Rosalynn Carter’s most lasting individual legacy will be her efforts to diminish the stigma attached to people with mental illnesses and her fight for parity and access for mental health treatment. She also devoted her time to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving at her alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University, to help families and professional caregivers living with disabilities and illnesses.

In 1999, then-President Bill Clinton presented both Carters with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. He said they had “done more good things for more people in more places than any other couple on Earth.”

In the White House, Rosalynn would urge her husband to put off controversial decisions until after his reelection. She freely admitted, “I am much more political than Jimmy and was more concerned about popularity and winning reelection.”

She lobbied to have her husband fire Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano. According to longtime Carter family friend and White House aide Jerry Rafshoon, she was angry at Califano over an anti-smoking campaign, fearing that it would hurt Carter’s standing in tobacco-producing North Carolina.

“I wanted Jimmy to fire Joe Califano long before he ever did,” she wrote in her memoir, “and my reasons were purely political.”

Her biggest regret in life was her husband losing reelection in 1980.

“I’d like people to know that we were right, that what Jimmy Carter was doing was best for our country, and that people made a mistake by not voting for him,” she said in her memoir.