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Must-see

Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln’s temple: from its steps Martin Luther King Jr. said “I have a dream”

Local name: Lincoln Memorial

Collection: Washington, D.C. · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The memorial’s east front and steps
The memorial’s east front and steps · Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the Lincoln Memorial, a Greek-style temple honoring the sixteenth president of the United States. Abraham Lincoln led the country through the Civil War and ended slavery. The architect Henry Bacon surrounded the building with thirty-six columns, one for each state in the Union when Lincoln died. The names of those states are carved above the columns. Inside sits a marble Lincoln nineteen feet tall. The sculptor Daniel Chester French made the model, and the Piccirilli brothers carved the statue from twenty-eight blocks of white Georgia marble. On the walls are two of Lincoln’s speeches: the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. The memorial was dedicated on the thirtieth of May 1922. Robert Lincoln, the president’s only surviving son, was at the ceremony. Black guests were seated separately: segregation was the norm then. Later these steps became a stage for the fight for equal rights. On Easter Sunday, the ninth of April 1939, the Black singer Marian Anderson sang here. The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused to let her perform in their concert hall. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes offered her the steps of the memorial instead. Seventy-five thousand people came to hear her. On the twenty-eighth of August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech from these steps. Find the landing eighteen steps below the statue. An inscription carved there in 2003 marks the spot where he stood. Turn around: straight ahead are the Washington Monument and, beyond it, the Capitol.

Visiting

Open 24 hours, free. Rangers are on duty from 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. The memorial is at the west end of the National Mall, by the Potomac River. In the evening the colonnade is lit up.

Photos

Daniel Chester French’s marble Lincoln
Daniel Chester French’s marble Lincoln · Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The colonnade lit up in the evening
The colonnade lit up in the evening · Mojnsen, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Sources

This text was written by AI from open sources. An expert will still check it. Found a mistake? Write to us. Support

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