Today was our final day, well half-day, in Washington, D.C. Otrell, for some reason, got up at 6:30 am, but the rest of us slept until 8:00 am.
After breakfast, I decided to go back to the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial to get some pictures and I wanted to see the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial and the Women’s Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. No one else wanted to go with me.
First I saw the Women’s Memorial, which is a very traditional war memorial: bronze and larger-than-life figures in military garb and poses.
The Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall is unique. It is built into the earth, as though there had been a small hill there in the park and the hill was cut down through its middle in and The Wall erected against it to hold back the exposed earth. The Wall ascended gradually up to a high point that reached far above my head, and then gradually descended. The names engraved onto The Wall began just a few steps in. Standing in front of the polished black stone surface, my image was reflected back at me. My reflection, because of the dark gray of the stone, was cast against a shadowed background. I saw a name, Daniel M. Kelley, etched in the shimmering surface of the black stone against my own shadowed reflection. I reached out to touch the name and the reflection of my hand reached back toward me.
There was a narrow moat right underneath The Wall and periodically, personal items had been laid down. I saw a beaded necklace, a bracelet, tattered flags, a letter, a photograph, and a poem.
There were alphabetical guides located at either end of The Wall where you could look up a name and it would tell you on which panel the name could be found. The Wall listed the names in the order in which they were killed.
This is the spot where John Lewis spoke (sixth) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke (tenth) at the March on Washington for Jobs and Equality on August 28, 1963. It is on the top of the steps leading to the Lincoln Memorial.
This is also the place where Marian Anderson sang after the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) refused her Constitution Hall as a performance venue.
An Aside
Constitution Hall is only a few blocks up from the Memorial Park on 18th Street. Last night we had walked by it. There was some sort of to-do going on and we crossed the street to ask a woman standing outside what was going on. I had seen the name of the building and something in my memory tried to wake up. When I saw the DAR plaque on the building, I remembered about Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt.
The DAR refused to allow Marian Anderson, a famed African American soprano, from performing at Constitution Hall. Then First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, cancelled her membership in the DAR in quiet protest. Arrangements were made for Marian Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
I re-read the Gettysburg Address.
It is amazing that in that famous speech, possibly the greatest speech in U.S. History, Lincoln used only unifying, never divisive, language. There was no North and South, no Union and Confederacy, no Us and Them; it was all Us, the UNITED States.
Lincoln’s statue inside the Memorial is much larger than life.
Our trip back to Portland was uneventful. We are on the train as I write this. I expect we’ll arrive in Portland around midnight.
1 Comment
May 11, 2009 at 2:21 pm
THEY LIED TO ME!!!