Donald Trump could not resist slamming the 76-year-old civil rights hero, John Lewis, for refusing to attend his inauguration because the election had been contaminated by Russian influence.  Instead of letting it go, Trump, in a typical narcissistic tweet, told Lewis to see to his own congressional district since it was in terrible shape.  Lewis represents downtown Atlanta, a thriving prosperous area.

In these times, I take heart from Ernestine Rose, who although she lived a hundred years ago, expressed all the values Trump denigrates.  For one instance, in an era far more racist than our own, she continued to speak out not only against slavery, but for the controversial topic of integration -- which hardly any white Americans did at the time.  In 1862, at an Anti-Slavery Convention, she not only praised abolition, she said that she would contribute funds for the publication of the black antislavery activist William Wells Brown's recent speech so that "it could be laid on the desk of the Members of Congress, and others, who may still be troubled with the absurd idea that slaves, if set free, cannot take care of themselves."

That's the America I honor and identify with.