JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Jimmy Carter is lying in repose under military guard at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. Since Saturday, people have been able to pay their respects around the clock to Georgia's only president, who died last month at 100 years old. In the first 24 hours, more than 10,000 mourners had come to say goodbye, and they keep coming late into the night. WABE's Sam Gringlas reports from Atlanta.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: By 10 p.m., the daytime crowds have thinned. It's so quiet now, you can hear wind rustling branches. Still, even at this late hour, a steady stream of mourners cross the wooded campus to pay their respects.
LAURA NEUMAN: Coming at night makes it really quite different than the daytime. It is very dark where his coffin is, and it's draped with the American flag. But because it's dark out, it's just spotlighted.
GRINGLAS: Longtime Carter Center staffer Laura Neuman volunteered during a night shift. She says many have found the wee hours serene and the experience more intimate. She feels that way, too.
L NEUMAN: My quieter moment was tonight with my daughter as we went through to see President Carter. He's really meaningful to our family not just because I worked with him for 25 years but because he helped bring my family together.
GRINGLAS: The former president helped Neuman with her daughter's adoption. The Carters were among the first to hold baby Isabelle when she finally arrived from Guatemala. Now she's a sophomore in college.
ISABELLE NEUMAN: He brought us together, and that's something that - I don't know. I think I'll carry that for the rest of my life.
GRINGLAS: Inside, a military guard of honor keeps watch over the casket. A changing of the guard happens at 11:30. Service members from five branches in dress uniforms march silently in locktep.
MARCUS WILLIAMS: It felt spiritual. It was moving, to say the least. It brought back a lot of memories.
GRINGLAS: In 1976, Marcus Williams was a young soldier stationed at Fort Leonard Wood. That fall, Williams cast his first vote for president. He voted for Jimmy Carter.
WILLIAMS: I was just determined, and I'm pleased that I came just to give my thanks.
GRINGLAS: Outside, a thick binder is filled with pages of tributes from visitors like Emily McDonald. McDonald grew up near the Carters' hometown. She even met them as a kid.
EMILY MCDONALD: Just thinking about all that's happened in my own life since I was that little girl. I was thinking about all that's happened in the world since then - just felt really touched by getting to see him one last time in that kind of way.
GRINGLAS: McDonald works in mental health, a cause the Carters championed, and she hopes to build on their legacy. Just before midnight, McDonald leans over the tribute book. Her neat handwriting fills half a page.
MCDONALD: I was writing about just how incredibly impactful it is for me to be able to see that someone from such, like, small and easily, like, forgotten and glanced over, like, part of the state truly changed the world.
GRINGLAS: Carter's remains go next to Washington on Tuesday, where he'll lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. On Thursday, he'll be buried in Plains, his home for most of a century. For in NPR News, I'm Sam Gringlas in Atlanta.
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