Rosalynn Carter, the activist First Lady who was “co-president”, dies | EUROtoday

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Rosalynn Carter is useless. The former First Lady, famend for her outspokenness, her political activism and dedicated to worldwide humanitarian causes, died in Plains, Georgia, in the home the place she lived together with her husband, 99-year-old Jimmy Carter to whom she was married for 77 years previous. Just a number of days in the past, the Carter Center introduced that Rosalynn had begun palliative care after years of dementia and a chronic interval of decay in her well being.

Jimmy’s loneliness

With her demise, her husband is left to combat alone: ​​the previous president has additionally been present process palliative take care of months. “Rosalynn has been my companion in all the things I’ve performed. She was my steering and encouragement after I wanted it. As lengthy as she was on the planet, I knew there was somebody who liked me and supported me,” said the former president who, when he was still in the White House, called Rosalynn his “greatest good friend, my good extension, most likely probably the most influential individual in my life.”

The “co-president”

Rosalynn revolutionized the role of First Lady in her four years in the White House between 1977 and 1981. Unlike her predecessors, in fact, Rosalynn participated in her husband’s cabinet meetings and spoke out on controversial topics. Her influence was so strong that some in the White House called her the co-president: “I’m extra political than my husband,” she often repeated.

Her trip to Latin America only four months after her husband’s election hit the news: seven countries in 13 days to explain American foreign policy with particular attention to human rights but also to drug trafficking. Her iron will contrasted with her shyness and her Southern accent, in a mix that prompted reporters of the time to call her “Steel Magnolia.”

The retreat and the Carter Center

Rosalynn Carter espoused the cause of mental health and the problems of the elderly in the White House and when the media did not cover her efforts and initiatives she criticized them by saying that they only wanted to deal with “horny” topics. After Carter’s defeat in 1980, and the subsequent transfer of power to Ronald Reagan, Rosalynn returned unenthusiastically to Plains, the small town where the couple was born, married and spent most of her life. However, her farewell to Washington did not prevent her from continuing to fight for her causes: with her husband she founded the Carter Center and wrote “Helping Yourself Help Others” on the difficulties of taking good care of the aged or kinfolk in disaster.