On February 27, 1860, while on a visit to New York City, Abraham Lincoln walked into the Broadway studio of photographer Mathew Brady and posed for a picture. For many Americans, this photograph, taken the same day as Lincoln’s important Cooper Union speech, would be the visual introduction to the man who later that year […]
How Experience Gives Weight To Our Words
Some years ago I was sitting in a church and during the service a friend of mine, Adam, stood up to read a passage from the Gospel of Luke, in which John the Baptist begins his work preaching and baptizing in the Jordan Valley. There is a quote in the passage that goes like this: […]
Rainy Post-Inauguration Visit To The MLK Jr Memorial
Two days after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States, still cringing from the hyper-nationalism of his inaugural speech, still yearning for rhetoric more truthful and hopeful and universal, I stood in the cold rain at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC. I found solace here, […]
The Inauguration Of Barack Hussein Obama (A Look Back)
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Also on that day, and in the same city (Washington DC), the man in this photograph was selling newspapers on 14th Street, just outside the Columbia Heights metro station. It was bitterly cold, but neither he nor the […]