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The Dedication:
"Mr. President, in the name of the Commission, I have the honor to deliver this Lincoln Memorial into your keeping."
With these words, Chief Justice William Howard Taft presented the Lincoln Memorial to President Harding and the American People, May 30, 1922. More than 50,000 attended the dedication ceremonies on a beautiful spring day in Washington. There were 3,500 invited guests as well as a line of Union and Confederate veterans seated in the front row. People across the country heard the speeches and benedictions on one of the first nationwide radio broadcasts.
The principal speaker was Dr. Robert Moton, President of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. His speech centered on the remarkable progress made by American Negroes since the Civil War in achieving full and equal citizenship. He urged all Americans, black and white, to continue the work Lincoln began with the Emancipation Proclamation -- "to free a nation as well as a race."
Although Dr. Moton was seated on the speakers' platform, the audience was segregated, blacks on one side, whites on the other.
President Harding eloquently expressed the real meaning of the Lincoln Memorial, "This Memorial, matchless tribute that it is, is less for Abraham Lincoln than for those of us today, and for those of us who follow after." |