After a Walk in the Rain, a Bucket-List Visit to the Lincoln Memorial
While waiting for Great American State Fair media credentials, a June 28 walk led from a small protest near the Reflecting Pool to a landmark where remembrance and public expression share the same ground.
WASHINGTON — My arrival at the Lincoln Memorial on June 28, 2026, followed a walk through the rain and a stop at the Reflecting Pool, where a small group of protesters had gathered. The memorial was the next destination in that same walk—and a place I had wanted to cross off my bucket list.
I was in Washington to cover the Great American State Fair for Whittier 360 News Network. While waiting for my media credentials, I decided to use the available time to visit some of the places that had brought me to the nation’s capital with more than a reporting assignment in mind.
The Lincoln Memorial was one of them.
Gray skies hung above its columns. The pavement was wet, umbrellas dotted the approach, and visitors continued to climb the steps toward the entrance. My photographs show a memorial that remained busy despite the weather: people approaching, stopping for pictures and making their way into the building.
From the rain into the memorial
Inside the central chamber, the seated Lincoln statue becomes the principal point of attention. The figure measures 19 feet from head to foot, excluding its pedestal. Daniel Chester French designed it, and the Piccirilli brothers carved it under his supervision. Those dimensions become easier to appreciate when visitors stand beneath it.
People raised their phones, posed for photographs and moved around the space in front of the statue. Signs requested quiet and respect. The scene combined a commemorative setting with the ordinary activity of people recording a visit: a photograph with a companion, a view of the sculpture, a moment standing below the inscription.
The words above Lincoln emphasize the preservation of the Union. They were written by art critic Royal Cortissoz, rather than taken from a Lincoln speech. That distinction matters: the inscription expresses how the memorial’s creators chose to commemorate the president, while the speeches in the adjoining chambers preserve Lincoln’s own words.
The building itself also belongs to a later generation. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it opened decades after Lincoln’s assassination. Visitors therefore encounter both the nineteenth-century president and a twentieth-century effort to give his memory a permanent national setting.
For me, entering that chamber marked the fulfillment of the immediate purpose of the walk. A place on my list was now a place I had visited—and one I was photographing alongside the other people who had continued their plans through the rain.
A place to remember, and a place to be heard
The small protest I had encountered near the Reflecting Pool provided a connection between the walk and the memorial’s broader public history.
That gathering was part of the same day’s experience, not something seen on another trip or introduced afterward as an unrelated example. Before reaching the statue, I had already encountered people using the surrounding national landscape to express their views.
The group’s presence did not make its cause or significance equivalent to the major gatherings associated with the memorial. It did place public expression within the ordinary scene of a visit, alongside sightseeing and photography.
Explore the Lincoln Memorial’s central chamber in 360 degrees, including the statue, surrounding columns and adjoining spaces. Image by Rebecca Canales/Whittier 360 News Network.
The memorial’s history includes occasions when the setting became part of the message. On April 9, 1939, Marian Anderson performed on its steps after she was denied the use of Constitution Hall because she was Black. Her outdoor concert brought an integrated audience to the memorial and became a significant event in the history of civil rights.
On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought a much larger gathering to the area. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” address at the memorial during a demonstration whose demands included employment opportunity, desegregation and protection of civil rights.
These were different events, with their own participants, purposes and circumstances. Together, they help explain why the memorial is associated not only with remembrance but also with appeals concerning the country’s future.
The constitutional connection is straightforward. The First Amendment addresses freedom of speech and the press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Those protections provide a framework for public expression without requiring agreement with every message expressed.
During my June 28 walk, sightseeing and protest were not taking place in separate worlds. They were among the activities I encountered on the way to the same landmark.
More than one reason to visit
The memorial offers several points of connection. Someone interested in Lincoln can examine the statue and speeches. An interest in architecture can lead to Henry Bacon’s design, which drew inspiration from the Parthenon in Athens. An interest in civil-rights history can lead to the steps and the gatherings held there.
The landscape offers another reason to stop. From the entrance, the view extends across the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument, with the memorial’s columns framing the scene.
Those features help explain the range of experiences available at the site. They do not tell us the personal reason each visitor came that day. A photograph can show someone standing before the statue; it cannot establish what that person believes about Lincoln or what brought them to Washington.
My own reason was clear. I had an opportunity during a reporting trip to see a place I had wanted to visit. The rain changed the conditions, but not the decision to go.
Reading Lincoln’s words in their own time
The Gettysburg Address occupies the memorial’s south chamber, while the Second Inaugural Address is inscribed in the north chamber. The first was delivered on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg. It linked the soldiers’ sacrifice to the founding proposition that “all men are created equal” and spoke of the “unfinished work” remaining for the living.
Understanding those words requires keeping the sequence of Lincoln’s presidency in view.
His initial declared objective in the conflict was preserving the Union, not immediately abolishing slavery throughout the United States. In his March 4, 1861, First Inaugural Address, he rejected unilateral secession while stating that he did not intend to interfere with slavery in states where it existed and did not believe he had the lawful authority to do so.
Federal policy changed during the war. The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, making emancipation part of the Union war effort in designated rebellious areas. It did not abolish slavery everywhere: loyal slave states and specified Confederate areas were excluded. That change had occurred more than two years before Lincoln’s second inauguration.
In the Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, Lincoln discussed slavery’s role in causing the conflict while looking toward the responsibilities of rebuilding a country damaged by war. His closing appeal included the words “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” followed by a call to care for those who had borne the battle and their families.
The dates matter. These were statements made at different stages of a conflict, not a single policy announced at the beginning and left unchanged.
Reading them carefully also means distinguishing government decisions from individual experiences and motives. Historical understanding requires the circumstances, records and competing arguments of the period, rather than treating later events as though everyone could have anticipated them.
The memorial introduces those questions through the words it preserves. Answering them fully requires more than a visit—or a single inscription.
Looking back across the Reflecting Pool
From the upper steps, the view returned me to the landscape I had crossed.
The Reflecting Pool stretched toward the Washington Monument. Visitors moved across the wet paving below, some beneath umbrellas. The gray weather softened the distance, while the columns provided a frame around the scene.
The view from the Lincoln Memorial’s upper steps extends across the rain-wet plaza and Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument on June 28, 2026. Image by Rebecca Canales/Whittier 360 News Network.
Look across the Reflecting Pool from the Lincoln Memorial in 360°.
The small protest near the pool, the visitors climbing the steps and the people photographing the statue were all parts of that day’s walk. They did not share a single purpose simply because they occupied the same grounds.
That variety was part of the visit. The memorial could be a destination on a travel list, a subject for a photograph, a place to study a president’s words or a setting for public expression.
The Great American State Fair had brought me to Washington for a reporting assignment. Waiting for the credentials gave me time to make this stop.
Reaching the memorial checked a place off my bucket list. Photographing it preserved something more particular: the Lincoln Memorial as I encountered it on June 28, with visitors still arriving through the rain.
Learn More
National Park Service — “Lincoln Statue,” “Lincoln Memorial Builders” and “The Making of the Lincoln Memorial,” for the sculpture, inscription authorship, architecture and dedication.
National Park Service — “Lincoln Memorial Inscriptions” and the full text of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, for the speeches displayed in the adjoining chambers.
Yale Law School, Avalon Project — Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1861.
National Archives — “Emancipation Proclamation (1863)” and “The Bill of Rights: A Transcription,” including the original document texts.
National Park Service — “Marian Anderson and Constitution Hall” and “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” for the memorial’s role in these historic gatherings.
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