Washington, D.C., District of Columbia story
The People's Monuments
While the giant marble monuments get the most attention, some of the city's most powerful stories were funded by the people themselves. Look at the Emancipation Memorial in Lincol…
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While the giant marble monuments get the most attention, some of the city's most powerful stories were funded by the people themselves. Look at the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park. Dedicated in 1876, this bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln and a formerly enslaved man wasn't paid for by the government.
Instead, it was funded by formerly enslaved people using their own wages. One woman, Charlotte Scott, gave the very first five-dollar donation in 1865. When the statue was unveiled, Frederick Douglass gave the keynote address to a crowd of over 25,000 people.
It serves as a reminder that the history of Washington isn't just written by the politicians in the Capitol, but by the citizens who fought, worked, and paid to ensure their own liberation was remembered in bronze.
Updated June 2026