Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I said, “Don’t tell me things can’t change. They can.” And they do. That’s America. That’s Delaware. A place of hope, life and limitless possibilities. — Joseph R. Biden Jr.

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The top quote above is from a political cartoon (cartoonist’s name indecipherable) on a newspaper’s editorial page Monday, Jan. 18, 2021, next to an editorial headlined “Message of Dr. King is timeless.” A paragraph: “As we observe the national holiday today commemorating the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. let us hope we can reflect on his template for peace and understanding. The theme offered this year by the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change is ‘The Urgency of Creating a Beloved Community.’”

The second quote is from the Washington Post story in today’s Berkshire Eagle headlined “‘Don’t tell me things can’t change’: Trip to Washington to take presidential oath is fueled by a raw goodbye to his home state.” In it Joe Biden, still president-elect, recalls himself, 12 years earlier, speaking on a train platform while awaiting then-president-elect Barack Obama. The story’s second-to-last paragraph: “And now, Biden said, he was headed to Washington to meet up with Kamala Harris, who will be the first female, the first Black and the first Asian American vice president.”

Ms. Harris will also be the first vice president with Caribbean roots and at least one of the first who previously served as a district attorney and then a state’s attorney general.

— Mark Channing Miller