When he showed up at the Chicago Tribune one day in early 1976, James Earl Carter Jr., was announced by one of our young newsroom copy clerks as “that governor from Georgia who thinks he can run for president.”

Yes, as a young reporter in that newsroom, I remember Jimmy Carter as a former peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., and a former Navy nuclear submariner with a 100-watt smile and high ambitions. Carter was on his marathon quest for national recognition as he built a campaign that truly came from the grassroots at a time when a successful presidential run by a southerner had not succeeded since Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texas Democrat.

Nearly a half-century on, at his funeral in Washington National Cathedral last Thursday, former President Carter, who died at age 100, was remembered by fellow Georgia Democrat Andrew Young as a man of “character” and “something of a miracle” with “prophetic” vision.

“He had the courage and strength to stick to his principles even when they were politically unpopular,” said Young, a veteran civil rights leader and congressman who Carter appointed ambassador to the United Nations. “As governor of Georgia half a century ago, he preached an end to racial discrimination and an end to mass incarceration. As president in the 1970s, as you’ve heard, he protected more land than any other president in history.”

And that’s just a pinch of Carter’s century-long life of achievements and, occasionally, high-profile setbacks. It was a century that he filled with honors, achievement and controversies, which added up to what many — including me — call the best ex-presidency in this nation’s history.

I remember him most for advancing the causes of peace, civil rights and aid to the underprivileged — to “the least of these,” as the Book of Matthew puts it.

Carter’s impulse to heal and seek peace was evident on his second day in office, when he pardoned all who had left the country to evade the Vietnam War draft. He went on to conclude the historic Camp David Accords and a later treaty bringing peace and establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.

He also concluded treaties transferring sovereignty of the Panama Canal and advanced the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the USSR.

Yet Carter’s presidency was largely undone by the Iranian Revolution and its economic knock-on effects. Carter had continued the longstanding U.S. support of the Shah of Iran, which earned America the moniker “Great Satan” among the Islamist revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah in 1979. In November of that year, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Teheran and held its personnel captive, not releasing them until minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as Carter’s successor.

The hostage crisis severely weakened Carter, especially after a rescue effort by elite U.S. military forces failed, leading to the deaths of eight servicemen. The Iranian Revolution also led to an oil crisis that caused long lines at gas stations in the U.S., spiked inflation and produced a record-high in the “misery index,” an economic measure that adds the inflation rate to the unemployment rate.

Hobbled by these events, Carter suffered a landslide defeat to the Republican ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in 1980.

Not surprisingly, historians and the public generally rate Carter’s presidency below average. Yet Carter’s post-presidency — the longest in history — stands out for most Americans as a model of modest and selfless public service.

That reversal came without much fanfare as he mounted his own efforts including the Carter Center to promote human rights, fight diseases and provide election observers to promote democracy and peace negotiations in trouble spots around the world. His work through the Carter Center was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Three days after the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, no zip ties, bear spray or costume hats were to be seen. Instead, we saw all five living presidents happily seated together, while we observers speculated as to what Republican President-elect Trump and Democratic former President Obama were joking about with each other. Peace at last?

“Time and again, I saw in him the ability to achieve diversity by the personality and upbringing,” Young said of Carter. “He went out of his way to embrace those of us who grew up in all kinds of conflict.”

Perhaps that spirit of goodwill is contagious — even in Washington. We can only hope.

The writer is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.