It Was Dark, Freezing and 4 a.m. Still, They Came to See Jimmy Carter.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to pay their respects to a president. They were not going to miss it, even if meant waking up in the middle of the night.

The early morning sky was a pool of ink, and the air was violently cold, at least by the standards of a Southerner by way of Nigeria. Still, Cornelius Ani pulled himself out of bed on Tuesday, bundled up and drove in 30 miles from the Atlanta suburbs. He had to.

This was his chance — his only chance — to be in the presence of someone like Jimmy Carter. A president of the United States. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A Georgian. A man with humble roots he deeply admired. Mr. Ani, 62, expected he would never encounter anyone else like that in his lifetime.

“That combination can only come from somebody who is chosen,” Mr. Ani said, beaming — suddenly immune to the chill — as he walked away from Mr. Carter’s coffin, having come to the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta hours before sunrise.

“Give it all, give it all, give it all,” Mr. Ani, a civil engineer, said. That was the lesson he took from Jimmy Carter.

The library had been open around the clock since Saturday evening, allowing anyone who wanted to step up to the coffin covered in an American flag to do so — to say a prayer, offer a salute, watch the changing of the guard, cry, or just stand there and savor the immersion in a moment that felt like a piece of history.