On May 30, 1922, an estimated 50,000 people gathered on the banks of the Potomac River for the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, a towering tribute to Abraham Lincoln. Decades in the making, the memorial’s classically inspired design alluded to two hallmarks of Lincoln’s presidency: the emancipation of the enslaved and his continued calls for unityin a time of unprecedented division.

Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s only surviving son, attended the Memorial Dayceremony, which featured speeches by three prominent men: Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft; President Warren G. Harding; and Robert Russa Moton, principal of the Tuskegee Institute, a historically Black school in Alabama.