The Lincoln Memorial stands as a testament to Abraham Lincoln’s enduring legacy and the reunification of a nation fractured by civil war. By 1922, Lincoln’s image had become mythic—commemorated as the “Great Emancipator” and revered almost as a martyr for his role in ending slavery and preserving the Union. The Memorial’s design intentionally evokes ancient Greece—the birthplace of democracy—underscoring Lincoln’s role as a champion of democratic ideals. Yet even as Lincoln’s memory was elevated, Americans in 1922 lived in a nation still deeply divided by race: segregation and Jim Crow were entrenched nationwide, the Ku Klux Klan had revived in force, and Southern “Lost Cause” myths romanticizing the Confederacy were ascendant. The dedication of Lincoln’s marble temple would therefore take place against a backdrop of contested memory and uneven progress toward the equality Lincoln had envisioned.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President (1861–1865), had by 1922 become an almost legendary figure. Born in 1809 to a poor family on the Kentucky frontier, he rose through hard work and self-education to become a lawyer and statesman. Lincoln was best known for preserving the Union during the Civil War and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which began the process of freeing four million enslaved Americans. He was often called the “Great Emancipator” and, after his assassination in 1865, was mythologized with parallels to George Washington. In the decades after his death, biographies and eulogies portrayed him as a saintly savior and frontier folk hero, fusing rugged individualism with noble virtue. As the country’s reunification progressed, Lincoln’s image was deliberately elevated—by 1922 he was widely honored as a martyr who had sacrificed for “union and liberty.”
Lincoln’s dual reputation as both a rustic storyteller and a principled statesman helped cement his legacy. Some contemporaries deified him, noting that even before his death he was being likened to Washington for his unifying role. Yet Lincoln also had critics, especially in the defeated South; they saw him as an intruder against states’ rights and as the destroyer of a social order built on slavery. This ambivalence over Lincoln’s meaning—as both liberator and polarizing figure—would shape how Americans remembered him long after 1865. By the early 20th century, Lincoln had come to symbolize the triumph of national unity and democracy, even as the ideals he articulated remained contested.
The decade following World War I was fraught with both reconciliation and renewed racial conflict. A spirit of national healing coexisted with harsh realities for African Americans. On one hand, many Americans celebrated the end of sectional animosity: World War I veterans from North and South marched together in parades, and federal commemorations emphasized themes of unity. Newspapers spoke poetically of “a temple of freedom” on the Mall that even Confederate veterans could attend.
On the other hand, the 1920s saw a resurgence of white supremacist ideology. The Ku Klux Klan grew dramatically, spreading violent racism across the nation. Iconic images like the film The Birth of a Nation glorified the antebellum South and even influenced President Woodrow Wilson to segregate federal workplaces. Public monuments to Confederate leaders multiplied, reflecting a “Lost Cause” narrative that whitewashed slavery and recast the Civil War as a noble struggle for states’ rights.
In northern cities, the Great Migration had brought millions of Black Americans into industrial jobs, but often into segregated neighborhoods and schools. Race riots in Chicago (1919) and other cities underscored the tensions. At the same time, African Americans forged new institutions and voices—the NAACP fought legal battles, and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance argued that Black culture and citizenship demanded respect. The nation’s memory of Lincoln was thus complex: for many white Americans he was a symbol of a healed Union, but for Black Americans he remained a symbol of unfinished freedom. This contradiction was glaring at the Lincoln Memorial dedication: a monument celebrating a champion of liberty was surrounded by an America still deeply divided by race.
The idea of a grand memorial to Lincoln in Washington dated back to the Civil War’s immediate aftermath. In March 1867, Congress approved the creation of a Lincoln Memorial Association charged with raising private funds for a monument. However, that early effort failed to gather momentum. Throughout the late 19th century a steady stream of proposals and design competitions came and went without result.
It was not until the centennial of Lincoln’s birth in 1909 that renewed public interest coalesced into action. As part of the 1902 McMillan Commission plan for the nation’s capital, city planners explicitly recommended a prominent Lincoln memorial at the western end of the National Mall, on reclaimed land overlooking the Potomac River. In 1911 Congress finally authorized the project by approving funding for the memorial.
On February 12, 1914 (Lincoln’s birthday), ground was ceremonially broken for the new memorial. Construction proceeded on a massive foundation and stepped terraces designed to support the Parthenon-like structure. The U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917 caused labor and material shortages. Work on the memorial slowed considerably but did not stop; in 1918 the design was revised to enlarge the central statue of Lincoln to 19 feet, requiring additional steel reinforcement in the floor. In late 1919 and early 1920, the assembled Georgia marble statue of Lincoln was completed and installed. Finally, on Memorial Day, May 30, 1922, the completed Lincoln Memorial was formally dedicated in a public ceremony on the Mall.
The memorial’s construction employed materials from across the country, symbolizing a reunited nation. The terrace walls and lower steps comprise granite from Massachusetts, the upper steps and façade marble from Colorado, with Indiana limestone inside, Tennessee marble floors, Alabama marble ceilings, and the Lincoln statue in Georgia marble. Henry Bacon, the New York architect responsible for the design, chose these diverse stones to tell a very specific story: a country torn apart by war can come together, not only to build something beautiful, but also to explain the reunification of the states. In this way, even the raw materials of the memorial physically embodied the unity Lincoln had fought to preserve.
The Lincoln Memorial is often described as a temple to democracy. Architect Henry Bacon deliberately modeled the structure on the ancient Greek Parthenon. In form and proportion it is an imposing Doric colonnade set atop broad steps. Bacon, who had studied in Europe, believed that a memorial to a man who defended democracy should be based on a structure found in the birthplace of democracy. The final design features 36 massive exterior columns, one for each U.S. state in the Union at Lincoln’s death in 1865; the names of those 36 states are carved in a frieze around the entablature above the columns. An additional 12 columns inside the memorial represent the future states that joined after 1865.
Inside the temple there are three chambers. The central chamber houses Lincoln’s statue, while the north and south chambers contain large inscriptions of his Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address, celebrating his principles. Over these inscriptions are allegorical murals by artist Jules Guerin, depicting the “Angel of Truth” and themes of reunification that reinforce Lincoln’s message.
At the memorial’s center sits the great statue of Lincoln himself, carved from Georgia marble. Sculptor Daniel Chester French created a 19-foot seated figure between 1919 and 1920. French meticulously studied photographs and casts of Lincoln to capture his likeness. The result is a solemn, dignified Lincoln with expressive features. Lincoln’s left hand is curled in a fist, symbolizing determination to end the war, while his right hand is open, symbolizing his desire to reunify the nation peacefully.
Biographer Carl Sandburg famously described Lincoln as a man of both “steel and velvet,” and French’s sculpture reflects that duality. There are subtle details, such as a bundle of united rods carved on the arms of Lincoln’s chair, implying strength through union. In short, every element of the memorial—from its Grecian form to its internal symbols—was chosen to remind viewers of Lincoln’s democratic legacy and the Union he fought to preserve.
The dedication of the Lincoln Memorial was a major public event, held on Memorial Day, May 30, 1922. An immense crowd gathered on the Mall. Approximately 50,000 people attended, including Civil War veterans from both the North and South, united in the spectacle. President Warren G. Harding was present, along with former President (and then-Chief Justice) William Howard Taft, Vice President Calvin Coolidge, and other dignitaries.
Notably, Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, aged 79, made his last public appearance at the ceremony. His frail figure climbing the steps of the new memorial provided a poignant living link to the martyred president. A new technology amplified the event— the dedication was broadcast live by radio to the nation—allowing many who could not be in Washington to hear the proceedings in real time.
Contemporary press gave vivid accounts of the scene. The New York Times wrote that the “fast dwindling survivors of the Civil War,” still wearing parts of their old uniforms, had the “satisfaction of witnessing the dedication of a marble symbol of Stanton’s announcement that the Great Emancipator belongs to the ages.” The Baltimore Sun described a “swelling tide of humble people” standing for hours under the sun to claim “this temple of freedom and the man whose memory it enshrines as their own.”
From above the Reflecting Pool the crowd stretched far across the Mall. Every speaker and act of the ceremony was picked up by loudspeakers so that tens of thousands could hear, and news photos captured white-draped rows of chairs amid the columns.
The program was solemn and symbolic. The ceremony opened with a prayer by Reverend Wallace Radcliffe, pastor of the church Lincoln often attended. Dr. Robert Russa Moton, president of Tuskegee Institute, delivered the first major address. His remarks immediately addressed the race issues of the day: he noted that African Americans present were seated in a segregated section, and he contrasted the Pilgrims’ Mayflower with an African slave ship to illustrate the “two principles” of liberty and bondage contending in America’s soul.
After Moton spoke, poet Edwin Markham recited “Lincoln, The Man of the People,” and the Marine Band played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Then Chief Justice Taft, as Chairman of the Lincoln Memorial Commission, formally presented the memorial to President Harding. Harding accepted it on behalf of the nation and delivered the closing address, observing that the new memorial would serve “less for Abraham Lincoln than for those of us today, and for those who follow after.” The ceremony concluded with a closing benediction, but the meaning of the day lingered in the air: Americans were reminded of Lincoln’s ideals and of the work still to be done to achieve them.
The participation of Dr. Robert Russa Moton in the dedication highlights the racial tensions underlying the event. Moton was a leading African American educator—successor to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee—and an important Black leader of his era. He was selected as the ceremony’s keynote speaker in part because he was seen as an “accommodationist” adviser on race relations to President Harding. In practice, this meant Moton attempted to balance critique with conciliation.
As he took the podium, Moton vividly underscored the contradiction of the moment: he explicitly acknowledged that Black attendees were being segregated in the audience, even as they gathered at the shrine of Lincoln, who freed the slaves. Using a famous metaphor, Moton compared the Mayflower carrying Pilgrims to religious liberty with an African slave ship, asserting that since colonial times “the two principles” of freedom and bondage had contended for America’s soul.
However, Moton’s original speech ran afoul of the white organizers. Chief Justice Taft (as Lincoln Memorial Commission head) insisted on reviewing Moton’s draft a week before the dedication. Taft found several passages too radical—specifically, any remarks directly blaming the federal government for its failure to protect Black civil rights—and ordered those sections removed.
Moton reluctantly complied; in correspondence with Taft he promised to tone down criticisms. Even so, Moton still delivered a powerful call for progress, urging all Americans to “make America an example for all the world of equal justice and equal opportunity for all.” Thus, despite censorship, Moton’s address carried a clear message that Lincoln’s promise of equality was unfulfilled.
The broader context of Moton’s experience was tragically ordinary for 1922 Washington. The same day as the dedication, African American attendees were forced into segregated seating by officers on the ground—a moment later recalled when a Marine guard justified it by saying, “That’s the only way you can handle these damned ‘niggers.’” In short, on the very steps of Lincoln’s Memorial, race segregation and bigotry were on full display. This stark irony did not escape contemporary observers: civil rights scholars note that the dedication itself is worth remembering as a reminder of how strained race relations still were at the time.
Invited African Americans found out when they arrived that the seating was segregated, making clear that Lincoln’s liberation of slaves had not ended the struggle for true equality. Moton’s cautious but poignant words and the treatment of Black guests underlined that the new “temple of reunification” was not yet a temple of equal justice for all.
Over the ensuing decades, the Lincoln Memorial grew in meaning far beyond its original dedication. It became a symbol not only of the Civil War but of America’s struggle toward the ideals Lincoln spoke for. The very issues Moton touched on would be brought again and again to the memorial’s steps. In 1939, for example, the memorial became the site of an important civil rights stand. The famed contralto Marian Anderson, barred from performing at a Washington concert hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because she was Black, was instead invited by the federal government to sing on the Lincoln Memorial’s steps.
On Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, Anderson performed before an integrated crowd of about 75,000 under the memorial’s colonnade. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, outraged at Anderson’s discrimination, had resigned from the DAR and helped secure the concert invitation. Anderson’s recital was widely viewed as a powerful protest against segregation: it literally brought Black and white listeners together at Lincoln’s monument, giving new resonance to his legacy.
Later, the memorial would serve as the backdrop for perhaps the most famous civil rights moment of all. In August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on those marble steps during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In a resonant allusion to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, King opened his “I Have a Dream” speech with “Five score years ago…” and then declared that he had a dream deeply rooted in the American dream of equality.
An estimated 250,000 people gathered there, and King’s speech—broadcast nationwide—became a watershed for the Civil Rights Movement. Journalists later observed that on that day Lincoln’s vision had been taken up by a new generation of activists, turning the Memorial into a “cathedral of American freedom.”
Thus, events at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 and 1963, among others, fulfilled the prediction of the park’s history: figures like Anderson and King would break the barriers of segregation faced in 1922 and add to the memorial’s meaning by taking Abraham Lincoln’s vision of equality to its full measure. The marble temple on the Mall gradually became inseparable from those later struggles.
For many Americans, it came to symbolize not only national reunification but the ongoing promise that all citizens—regardless of race—share equal rights under the Constitution. By its centennial in 2022, the Lincoln Memorial had thus accumulated layers of meaning: as a tribute to a beloved president, as an architectural marvel inspired by democracy’s ancient roots, and as the enduring stage for America’s pursuit of civil rights and justice.
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