Walking through the streets of Washington D.C. on the FFA trip, you can see many cool forms of art all around you, including National monuments you can touch and walk around, that are bigger and more magnificent than you would think. The two main ones you have likely heard about countless times are the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. They also stood out the most because of their size and their important representation of history.
Starting with the Washington Monument, you were able to see it from most of the places we visited in DC. At night, the monument would light up from the lights surrounding the base. It was built in two phases. The first phase was from 1848-1854, but they had to stop due to a lack of funding. The monument has two different colored stones telling you exactly where they ran out of funding. The Washington Monument was massive and looked like a tall, skinny skyscraper in the 1800s, towering over everything around it.
The Lincoln Memorial was the second monument that stood out to me. The size alone was astounding; it was made out of several different pieces of marble from Georgia. Walking up the stairs to the statue surrounded by gorgeous greenery and white colosseums is an experience I won’t forget, especially the first look halfway through the stairs. I have seen so many different kinds of pictures of the monument, but they don’t do justice compared to what I was fortunate enough to see. The monument itself is made out of several different kinds of granite and marble. It was honestly so powerful to me just seeing how big it truly is. Within the memorial walls are the Gettysburg address on the north side, Lincoln’s second inaugural address on the south side, and a quote about the statue’s importance and prominence above his head, engraved in the stone.
This quote reads, “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”
This quote talks about how the Union (North) was saved during the war and how he is credited with keeping the United States from falling apart. On the left side, his hand is lying open on the armrest of the chair, and a clenched fist on the right. To me, it is a symbol of how he guided the North, saw the war through, and ended it with a resolution and an open fist to welcome the South back to the United States.
I asked Cooper Miles a student who went on the trip what he thought of these two specific monuments, “The Washington Monument is so breathtaking and it’s cool how it is multiple different kinds of bricks. The Lincoln Monument is so much bigger than I originally thought. It has such a pretty view of the National Mall as well.”
Standing at Lincoln’s feet looking up at this marble statue, I felt something I didn’t know how to explain. His historical impact is so important to this country and without him who knows where we would be, would we still be a divided country or would America have fallen apart altogether? This country is often so divided and this statue just sheds light on how far we have come as a whole.
