The Tidal Basin in Washington, DC

This is the tidal basin during last spring's cherry blossom bloom. Cherry blossom time gets busy around the basin, but normally it is one of the more peaceful spots in DC.

On the left is, I believe, where the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be. They are supposed to break ground next month.

The picture is taken from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Eleanor is also memorialized, although she doesn't get the billing she should.

Just around the other side of the basin is the Jefferson Memorial. So someday soon you will be able to walk through the moral journey of the United States by taking a stroll around the Tidal Basin.

Jefferson, who struggled with the immorality of slavery, although he owned slaves his whole life, begins the journey. Next comes Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the rights of African-Americans, Jews, Catholics and Native Americans, but whose record was marred by the internment of Japanese and Germans in World War II. Eleanor was even more progressive than FDR. She was also instrumental in the writing and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Finally, there will be Martin Luther King, Jr. What can you say about MLK? Faced with terrible violence and constant degradation, he led a movement of inspirational peace that changed the world. Even in my recent trip to London, the inspirational poster in the subway was Martin Luther King. I doubt there is a corner of the globe he hasn't inspired in some way.

The route from Jefferson to Roosevelt to King will be covered in cherry trees. The first trees were a gesture of friendship from the Tokyo mayor in 1912. This friendship was short lived, as Pearl Harbor was just 29 years later.

Yet by 1965, just 24 years after Pearl Harbor and 20 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 3,800 more trees were given as a gift from Japan. It's incredible when you think about it. In the Middle East people are still holding grudges from the Crusades. Meanwhile the United States and Japan rebuilt their relationship in less than twenty years.