For example, Calvin Coolidge, a Republican who served as president from 1923 to 1929, played a key role in advancing civil rights in the United States.
Similarly, John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and at one point the world's richest man, paid off the debts of what would later become Spelman College -- a beacon for African-American women.
For his part, President Richard Nixon significantly advanced the project of desegregation.
Seeing the good -- even the great -- in flawed figures like Johnson and Nixon can help us rediscover the perspective upon which productive cooperation is based.
President Ronald Reagan, for example, backed U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's efforts to rein in double-digit inflation, knowing full well that the resulting recession would cost the Republicans dearly in the 1982 midterm elections.
Just as Reagan had worked with Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, to save Social Security, so President Bill Clinton worked with Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker, to balance the budget and reform welfare.
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