This Is America

If America hasn’t broken your heart, then you don’t love her enough.— Cory Booker

One of the joys of living in Washington, D.C., was the promise of spring days, with the cherry blossoms in bloom and friends arriving from out of town, all of them keen to experience the great monuments and sweeping vistas of the nation’s capital. Even the most jaded among them — modern architects, for example, who dismissed the entire city as a neoclassical theme park — could not mask their emotions when standing in the historic shadow of Martin Luther King, pausing on the stone steps that overlook the still waters of the Reflecting Pool, or staring at a black granite wall, polished to a mirror finish, as aging vets and heartbroken mothers reached out to touch the names of brothers and loved ones lost in the jungles of Vietnam. I took both pride and care in gently curating our outings, knowing from experience how much visitors...