This past Jan. 20 was an unusually noteworthy day for all Americans. It was the day we inaugurated a new president, once again transferring power peacefully in a rite of passage that makes our country exceptional and great.

It was also the day we recognized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as one of our greatest Americans, who led us to a new standard of justice and equality for which we had been striving for over 200 years.

I spent the morning watching the inauguration.  And I spent the evening watching the movie “Selma” about how Dr. King used peaceful resistance to expose the lawless brutality and denial of constitutional rights pervasive throughout the South. The violent reaction to peaceful protests raised our national consciousness and embarrassed our government to enact the Civil Rights legislation that finally delivered on the promise of constitutional amendments passed right after the Civil War.

Our Founding Fathers failed to end slavery and compromised their ideal of freedom to create a nation that included the Southern colonies. Four score and seven years later, we were embroiled in a civil war.  Over 600,000 Americans died in this war, which resulted in constitutional amendments ending slavery and giving Black men the right to vote.

President Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson threw away what had been bought in blood. He allowed the Southern states to create local Jim Crow laws that denied the equality and rights for which the war had been fought – laws brutally enforced by the Ku Klux Klan and like-minded local law enforcers. It wasn’t until Martin Luther King’s leadership, and much more blood, before Black Americans could vote and were protected by the law of the land.

Coretta King, King’s widow, proposed that the national holiday honoring him should be a call to action against hunger. She believed food was the most basic human right, and placed it right along with the human rights her husband had advocated were a responsibility of all of us.

On the same day we honored Dr. King, we inaugurated Donald Trump as our 47th president. Inauguration Day is when our new leader presents a new vision, sets a new direction and generally reinforces the idea of hope for the future. President Trump spent the first part of his speech describing a country so bleak and damaged that it’s a wonder anyone wants to come here. I hadn’t realized how bad my life had become.

One of Trump’s first actions was to pardon 1,500 people who had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned for various crimes involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Many of these crimes were violent, injuring over 140 police officers. The message was clear – it is all right to attack police when you are fighting for something Trump wants. What a noble concept.

Another immediate action was to begin deportation and halt the legal immigration of Afghans who helped our military and now need to flee the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Trump is a billionaire, or so he says.  So are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other capitalism kings who are falling over themselves to jump on the Trump bandwagon. They alone could deliver the human right of food Mrs. King called for to honor her husband’s fight.  Instead they are looking to further enrich themselves and protect their wealth from Trump’s erratic, vindictive behavior.

Warren Buffett and his son Howard are also billionaires. They were not at the inauguration. Since 2006, they have been using their billions to try to eradicate hunger.

Martin Luther King had a famous dream. He told people about it from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was a dream of equal justice and human rights for all. Trump also has a dream of redefining justice based on who he likes and deporting millions of human beings regardless of what contributions they are making to our economy and society.

This past Jan. 20 was a day of contrast in nobility like I’ve never before experienced. On the same day my heart swelled with pride to be an American, I was also profoundly embarrassed to be an American.  

We all want our country to be great. We only saw one example of real greatness and the man, who led it has been dead for 57 years.