Jim­my Carter, who con­sid­ered him­self an out­sider even as he sat in the Oval Of­fice as the 39th U.S. pres­i­dent, will be hon­ored Thurs­day with the pageantry of a fu­ner­al at Wash­ing­ton Na­tion­al Cathe­dral be­fore a sec­ond ser­vice and bur­ial in his tiny Geor­gia home­town.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who was the first sit­ting sen­a­tor to en­dorse Carter’s 1976 cam­paign, will eu­lo­gize his fel­low De­mo­c­rat 11 days be­fore he leaves of­fice. All of Carter’s liv­ing suc­ces­sors are ex­pect­ed to at­tend the Wash­ing­ton fu­ner­al, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump, who paid his re­spects be­fore Carter’s cas­ket Wednes­day in the Capi­tol Ro­tun­da.

The rare gath­er­ing of com­man­ders in chief of­fers an un­usu­al mo­ment of comi­ty for the na­tion in a fac­tion­al­ized, hy­per-par­ti­san era. Days of for­mal cer­e­monies and re­mem­brances from po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, busi­ness ti­tans and rank-and-file cit­i­zens have hon­ored Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, for de­cen­cy and us­ing a prodi­gious work eth­ic to do more than ob­tain po­lit­i­cal pow­er.

“He set a very high bar for pres­i­dents, how you can use voice and lead­er­ship for caus­es,” said Bill Gates, the Mi­crosoft co-founder whose foun­da­tion fund­ed Carter’s work to elim­i­nate treat­able dis­eases like the Guinea worm. Gates spoke to The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on Wednes­day short­ly be­fore fly­ing to Wash­ing­ton for the fu­ner­al.

“What­ev­er pres­tige and re­sources you are lucky enough to have, ide­al­ly you can take those and take a even broad­er so­ci­etal view in your post pri­vate sec­tor ca­reer,” Gates said.

Ber­nice King, daugh­ter of slain civ­il rights leader Mar­tin Luther King Jr., com­pared the two Geor­gians and No­bel Peace Prize win­ners.

“Both Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter and my fa­ther showed us what is pos­si­ble when your faith com­pels you to live and lead from a love-cen­tered place,” said King, who al­so is plan­ning to at­tend the Wash­ing­ton ser­vice.

At the cathe­dral, Ted Mon­dale, son of Wal­ter Mon­dale, Carter’s vice pres­i­dent, is ex­pect­ed to read a eu­lo­gy his fa­ther wrote for Carter be­fore his own death in 2021. Steve Ford, the grand­son of Pres­i­dent Ger­ald Ford, will read a trib­ute from his grand­fa­ther, who died in 2006. Carter de­feat­ed Ford in 1976 but the pair, and their first ladies, be­came close friends, and Carter eu­lo­gized Ford at his fu­ner­al.

Mourn­ers al­so will hear from Stu Eizen­stat, who was a top White House staffer for Carter, and 92-year-old An­drew Young, a for­mer At­lanta may­or, con­gress­man and U.N. am­bas­sador dur­ing the Carter ad­min­is­tra­tion. Carter out­lived much of his Cab­i­net and in­ner cir­cle, but re­mained es­pe­cial­ly close to Young — a friend­ship that brought to­geth­er a white Geor­gian and Black Geor­gian who grew up in the era of Jim Crow seg­re­ga­tion.

Thurs­day will con­clude six days of na­tion­al rites that be­gan in Plains, Geor­gia, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died af­ter 22 months in hos­pice care. Cer­e­monies con­tin­ued in At­lanta and Wash­ing­ton, where Carter, a for­mer Naval of­fi­cer, en­gi­neer and peanut farmer, has lain in state since Tues­day.

Long lines of mourn­ers wait­ed sev­er­al hours in frigid tem­per­a­tures to file past his flag-draped cas­ket in the ro­tun­da, as trib­utes fo­cused as much on Carter’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an work af­ter leav­ing the White House as what he did as pres­i­dent from 1977 to 1981.

Af­ter the morn­ing ser­vice in Wash­ing­ton, Carter’s re­mains, his four chil­dren and ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly will re­turn to Geor­gia on a Boe­ing 747 that serves as Air Force One when the sit­ting pres­i­dent is aboard.

The out­spo­ken Bap­tist, who cam­paigned as a born-again Chris­t­ian, will then be re­mem­bered in an af­ter­noon fu­ner­al at Maranatha Bap­tist Church, the small ed­i­fice where he taught Sun­day School for decades af­ter leav­ing the White House and where his cas­ket will sit be­neath a wood­en cross he fash­ioned in his own wood­shop.

Mu­sic — sa­cred, pa­tri­ot­ic and pop­u­lar — will fea­ture promi­nent­ly through­out the day for the evan­gel­i­cal pres­i­dent who cam­paigned with the All­man Broth­ers Band, be­friend­ed Willie Nel­son and quot­ed Bob Dy­lan in his 1977 in­au­gur­al ad­dress. In Wash­ing­ton, the U.S. Ma­rine Or­ches­tra and Armed Forces Cho­rus will sing “Eter­nal Fa­ther, Strong to Save,” the Navy hymn, for the on­ly U.S. Naval Acad­e­my grad­u­ate to be­come com­man­der in chief. Coun­try mu­sic stars Garth Brooks and Tr­isha Year­wood, who suc­ceed­ed Jim­my and Ros­alynn Carter as am­bas­sadors for Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty, will per­form John Lennon’s “Imag­ine,” repris­ing their role at the for­mer first la­dy’s fu­ner­al in 2023.

Hymns in­clude “All Hail the Pow­er of Je­sus’ Name” and, in Plains, “Let there be Peace on Earth.”

Fol­low­ing a fi­nal ride through his home­town, past the old train de­pot that served as his 1976 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign head­quar­ters, he will be buried on fam­i­ly land in a plot next to Ros­alynn, to whom Carter was mar­ried for more than 77 years of mar­riage.

Carter, who won the pres­i­den­cy promis­ing good gov­ern­ment and hon­est talk for an elec­torate dis­il­lu­sioned by the Viet­nam War and Wa­ter­gate, signed sig­nif­i­cant leg­is­la­tion and ne­go­ti­at­ed a land­mark peace agree­ment be­tween Is­rael and Egypt. But Carter al­so presided over in­fla­tion, ris­ing in­ter­est rates and in­ter­na­tion­al crises and lost a land­slide to Re­pub­li­can Ronald Rea­gan in 1980.

Two years lat­er he and Ros­alynn es­tab­lished The Carter Cen­ter in At­lanta as a non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tion that took them across the world fight­ing dis­ease, me­di­at­ing con­flict, mon­i­tor­ing elec­tions and ad­vo­cat­ing for racial and gen­der eq­ui­ty. The cen­ter, where Carter lay in re­pose be­fore com­ing to Wash­ing­ton, cur­rent­ly has 3,000 em­ploy­ees and con­trac­tors glob­al­ly.

Be­sides memo­ri­al­iz­ing the longest-lived pres­i­dent, the day of na­tion­al mourn­ing high­lights both the con­ti­nu­ity and con­flicts across U.S ad­min­is­tra­tions. Carter nor­mal­ized re­la­tions with Chi­na, build­ing on Richard Nixon’s out­reach to Bei­jing. Trump is propos­ing to ratch­et up a trade war with the world’s most pop­u­lous coun­try. The De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion was cre­at­ed dur­ing Carter’s ad­min­is­tra­tion. Trump has pro­posed elim­i­nat­ing it.

Carter stream­lined Amer­i­can en­er­gy re­search by cre­at­ing the De­part­ment of En­er­gy, im­ple­ment­ed en­er­gy stan­dards for home ap­pli­ances and ex­tend­ed fed­er­al pro­tec­tions to sub­stan­tial tracts of land, no­tably in Alas­ka. Trump is re­turn­ing to of­fice promis­ing to “drill, ba­by, drill.”