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:
““The ideal reasoner,” he remarked, “would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)