Atlanta Society category interest

Jimmy Carter will turn 100 on October 1, 2024! The Carter Center is kicking off the centennial celebrations for the former president tonight in Georgia.

"Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song" will be held at Atlanta's Fox Theatre tonight. "It's going to be a reunion of sorts for all of us and for all of the people that have been a part of his life," Jason Carter, his grandson, tells TandC. "It's going to be a time to, in a fun way, reflect on this remarkable lifetime, and to do it around music, which all of us just appreciate and love."

How do you plan a 100th birthday celebration "for someone who has everything" as Jason puts it? The Carter Center started with music, and performance. "Music has always been really important to him in his life," Jason says. "It's always been an important, because he enjoys it, because it's had big influences on him. Even in his politics, music was always really important. He also believed forever [that music] is one of the human creations that brings people together in fundamental ways, across the world, across cultures, across all kinds of barriers. We just thought that it was a really appropriate way was to have this eclectic and wide ranging collection of artists come together and have a concert."

Jimmy Carter with country music group Alabama on stage at Peachtree City Amphitheater circa 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Performers at the event include Chuck Leavell, D-Nice, Drive-By Truckers, Eric Church, GROUPLOVE, Maren Morris, The War And Treaty, Angélique Kidjo, BeBe Winans, Carlene Carter, Duane Betts, India Arie, Lalah Hathaway, The B-52s, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus. Tickets for the evening will support the Carter Center.

The poster for the evening.

"I couldn't be more delighted to have been asked to take part in this event honoring President Carter," Carlene Carter said. "When my mother, June Carter, and her husband, Johnny Cash, went to visit him at the White House, I was pretty jealous, as I thought so highly of him even back then. Both he and June had suggested more than once that we were, in fact, kin, and the fact that both he and mom had that Carter 'sparkle' makes me think that they were related."

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter (center) chat with Jonny Cash (right) and June Carter (left) during a visit to the White House. They’re joined by John Carter Cash.

She continued, "When Jimmy Carter was our president, it was evident to me that he only wanted the best for our country and for all humankind. I look at him as a very special, spiritual soul, so when people ask if we're related, I always respond, 'I hope so.'"

Jason says the family hasn't thought ahead to Jimmy's actual birthday quite yet, which will be a "smaller, family event."

"He is going to get that absentee ballot," Jason says, referencing the fact that early voting in Georgia begins on October 15. "He's excited to cast a ballot, for a host of reasons, for Kamala Harris. I think there's a lot of poetry to it if you want to go down that line. He also is just excited to sort of turn the page on this Donald Trump era that has really been defined by sort of a meanness and a darkness that's very different than what I think Jimmy Carter has always been about."

The concert will not be streaming tonight, but it will air on Georgia Public Broadcasting on Jimmy Carter's actual birthday, October 1.