Events
Located at the base of the Lincoln Memorial's steps, the Reflecting Pool area has been the site of many historic events, including:
- In 1939, singer Marian Anderson was denied permission to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington, because she was African American. An open air concert was arranged on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, with a crowd of over 75,000 people around the Reflecting Pool area.
- In 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom used the area for its Civil Rights rally. It was there that Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered to a crowd of a quarter million people standing around (and in) the Reflecting Pool.
- In 2009, We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. An estimated 400,000 attendees watched from around the pool.
- In 2010, the restoration project began.
- As of 2012, the restoration project is done and the pool was reopened on August 31.
Read more about this topic: Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“On the most profitable lie, the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing, and makes their business a friendship.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)