WASHINGTON — First came the public pomp, in dying hours of winter daylight: a horse-drawn caisson bearing the flag-draped casket, dignitaries with bowed heads, the snow-muffled echo of a military honor guard’s precision footsteps.
But then, as night fell Tuesday on the nation’s capital, came the quieter tributes: ordinary people — first in the hundreds, swelling into the thousands — gathering in bitter cold outside the U.S. Capitol to pay their final respects to Jimmy Carter, the 39th American president, who died at 100 on Dec. 29.
There were elders leaning on canes in the slushy snow, children so bundled up their arms nearly stuck out straight from their sides, teenagers bouncing on their heels as much from sheer energy as an attempt to keep warm.
Lottie Sneed, 73, was among the first in line, queuing up outside black wire-mesh barriers before the public viewing hours began at 7 p.m. When civil rights heroine Rosa Parks lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in 2005, the Maryland woman waited all night to file past her casket.
She was glad not to have to do that this time, she said, but the underlying sentiment was much the same: a show of respect.
“You leave a footprint for your life’s work,” she said. “You can’t always thank people at the time for their sacrifices, but you can do something to show that you saw, you noticed.”
It was midnight when 17-year-old high-school student Josephine Flannery-Goodman neared the front of the line, mercifully an indoor affair at this stage, in the sprawling, statuary-filled Emancipation Hall below the Rotunda.
She and her architect father, David Goodman, came to the public viewing almost on impulse, bundling into their coats in mid-evening and driving across the river from Arlington, Va. Josephine was excited to experience a bit of history, she said.
For her father, 57, the occasion carried a hint of premonition as a new president is soon to take office, remembering his boyhood days as a time when Carter’s modesty-inflected presidency gave way to a more bombastic national mood under his successor, Ronald Reagan.
“After that,” Goodman said, “I always felt we were a very different country.”
For many, the serene communal ritual of arriving at the casket’s resting place in the Rotunda offered a respite, if only for a few moments, from the anxiety of a complicated national moment, or the press of everyday concerns — or both.
Before entering the soaring chamber, people were asked to silence devices and refrain from photography. Chatter halted of its own accord. Onlookers involuntarily clasped their hands.
Inside, an ethereal hush replaced the pinging and buzzing of text messages and news alerts. The only sound was the steady shushing of shoes and snow boots across the marble floor. The military members of the honor guard stood mannequin-still. Children raised their eyes skyward.
Unlike at many such events, people were allowed to move at an unhurried pace, flowing in concentric circles around the casket set atop the same catafalque used in 1865 to hold Abraham Lincoln’s body.
Nearly everyone paused in their steps, some lingering for long moments. Some moved their lips in seeming prayer. Almost everyone looked pained and pensive.
“With the wait beforehand, and then inside, there was a lot of time to think about why we’re here,” said Elizabeth Wason, 40, of Washington, leaning quietly against a pillar after she emerged. “It’s a really frenetic world. This gave time to just stand and think.”
Ushers in red jackets thanked everyone for coming. They sounded as if they meant it.
Outside, the darkness deepened. Temperatures — already a chilly 25 degrees as the evening viewing began — ticked down a degree, then two. An occasional scything wind flapped the flags flying at half-staff. People stamped their feet, cradled hands in their armpits, swaddled their faces.
Here and there, a brilliant burst of color against the darkened sky: a fuchsia headscarf, a rainbow-striped puffer coat.
Long conversations drew in side-by-side strangers. People chatted about books and movies, snowfall tallies and recipes. But they also talked about the jarring transition between political eras, and the consolations of a long and honorable second act like the one Carter had.
“I keep thinking about one thing, that he was an honest person,” said Neel Patel, 36, of New Jersey, who trained as a pharmacist. “A person who did his best not to lie.”
As the hour grew late, the moon, bearing a fuzzy halo, rose over the Capitol dome, reflecting off a pure, unbroken slope of snow. Everyone pulled out cellphones to take a picture.
Most people came away saying they were glad to have made the effort. Retired teacher Sally Goss lives in Ellicott City, Md. — an hour’s drive from Washington in good conditions, longer on wintry roads. But she and her husband, Tom, a retired attorney, had decided months ago that when the time came, they would make the trek.
“As a young woman, I remember being very proud as a Southerner when he was elected,” said Goss, 70, who grew up on a family farm in North Carolina. “I respected him so much as a human being.”
While president, from 1977 to 1981, Carter was a self-described outsider in Washington, sometimes irked by the capital’s stuffy ways. For a while, he famously forbade the playing of “Hail to the Chief.”
In time, the four decades of his post-presidency, filled with humanitarian works, won the admiration of many Americans. Randy Moffett, 61, a retired college professor transplanted to Washington from Carter’s native Georgia, gathered a seven-member group of family and friends to pay their respects in person to the late president.
“The way he decided to forgo making a lot of money after his presidency — he was just an exemplary public servant,” Moffett said. “That’s really something to admire.”
Carter’s family, conscious of his place in history, acceded to a full measure of public honors — including the elaborately choreographed arrival of his casket at the Capitol, and the state funeral set for Thursday at the National Cathedral, with diplomats and dignitaries and former presidents in attendance.
But first, there was another full day for anyone at all to come to the Rotunda. Early Wednesday morning, before the cold sky had fully lightened, the line was forming again.
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