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This memorial touches the hearts of all African-Americans because of Lincoln’s steadfastness in ending slavery in the US. It was here that Martin Luther King, Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech.

This church was important in sheltering runaway slaves before the Civil War, and its pulpit has hosted many respected speakers, including Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesse Jackson.

This museum explores the role that African-Americans have played in the culture of the nation. Temporary exhibitions examine specific events or survey the work of important black artists.

Frederick Douglass, a former slave, made many speeches for the rights of African-Americans, and was an adviser to Abraham Lincoln. He and his wife, Anna, moved into this Gothic-Italian-style house in 1877. In the garden is a humble stone hut nicknamed “The Growlery,” which Douglass used as a study.

A former cotton-picker, Bethune rose to be a leading educator of African-Americans and an activist for equal rights. Her house was the headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women, which she founded. During the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, she was a valued adviser.

In one of its most notable decisions, the Supreme Court aided African-Americans’ quest for equality in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education trial, in which the “separate but equal” system of education was overturned. It was a turnaround from the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that supported segregation.

Believed to be the first black congregation in the District, founded in 1816, Mount Zion’s original building was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Its present red-brick site was built in 1884. Behind the church is a small cottage containing a collection of artifacts reflecting the black history of Georgetown.

This pleasant urban park does justice to its dedication to Abraham Lincoln. The 1974 Robert Berks statue of Mary McLeod Bethune shows the great educator passing the tools of culture on to younger generations. The Emancipation Statue by Thomas Ball (1876) shows Lincoln holding his Proclamation in the presence of a slave escaping his chains (see Emancipation Monument).

Another site associated with the statesman and abolitionist, this was Douglass’s home for nearly 10 years from the mid-1870s. Artifacts associated with Douglass are displayed here.

This waterfront park is named in honor of a renowned 18th-century free black mathematician and astronomer.