Lincoln Memorial Dedicated on Memorial Day

Context

Efforts to erect a national memorial to Abraham Lincoln began shortly after his assassination in 1865, with Congress authorizing commissions in 1867 and again in the early twentieth century. By 1911 a new Lincoln Memorial Commission, chaired by former president William Howard Taft, selected architect Henry Bacon’s design of a Greek temple and a site at the western end of the National Mall aligned with the Washington Monument and Capitol. Construction started in 1914 after Congress appropriated funds, overcoming objections that the classical style was too grand for Lincoln’s humble origins and that the reclaimed Potomac parkland was too remote.

What Happened

On May 30, 1922, an estimated 50,000 spectators gathered at the completed memorial for the dedication ceremony on what was then known as Decoration Day. Chief Justice Taft, still serving as commission president, formally presented the structure to President Warren G. Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people. Lincoln’s only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, attended and received an ovation. The program featured an invocation, addresses by Taft and Harding, and a keynote speech by Dr. Robert Russa Moton, president of Tuskegee Institute, who called for a renewed commitment to equality. The proceedings were broadcast live by radio to listeners across the country.

Aftermath

The ceremony concluded without incident, though prominent African American attendees were directed to a segregated section guarded by U.S. Marines at the direction of Lt. Col. Clarence O. Sherrill. Harding’s remarks were among the first presidential addresses transmitted by radio, extending the event’s reach far beyond the Mall. The memorial immediately opened to the public as a completed national monument.

Legacy

Over the following decades the Lincoln Memorial became a focal point for civil-rights gatherings, most notably Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert on its steps and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address during the 1963 March on Washington. Its inscriptions of the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address continue to frame public debates on unity, emancipation, and equality, making the site one of the most symbolically charged locations in American civic life.