D.C. African American Museum to Unveil New Lincoln Statue

By Ed Epstein

Washington, D.C.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

A poignant statue depicting a seated President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation will be formally unveiled in the nation's capital on Monday, September 22, outside the African American Civil War Museum as that museum prepares to reopen later this fall after a multi-year rebuilding and expansion project.

The Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia has been asked to coordinate plans for the September 22 event and for a bigger celebration when the 16,000-square-foot museum formally opens on Veterans Day, Tuesday, November 11. Other organizations, including the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a group of descendants of federal Civil War soldiers, are already pitching in, and more organizations are expected to join the effort.

The free, outdoor September 22 program will feature speakers, including Lincoln scholar, Lincoln Group member, and Howard University history professor emerita Edna Greene Medford; Civil War-era music; a host of Civil War re-enactor; and Dawn Chitty, the museum's director of education. The wrap-up speaker will be Frank Smith, the museum's executive director, who has doggedly pursued the museum project for several years.

Smith chose September 22 for the unveiling of the statue, created by bronze sculptor Stan Watts, because on that date in 1862, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, giving seceded states until the end of that year to return to the union or face the prospect of their four million slaves becoming free. None of the states took him up on the offer. The proclamation also authorized the enlisting of freed slaves into the U.S. Army, and Black men quickly started joining up. The US Colored Troops are a particular focus of the museum.

The proclamation will be read at the event, and everyone on hand will get a copy of Lincoln's words, which were carefully drawn, in his lawyerly way, to withstand possible legal challenges.

After the outdoor events, the program will move inside to the still-unfinished museum, where re-enactors will give presentations as such figures as Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln's African American seamstress and friend. After that, a reception with light refreshments will be offered.

The museum, at 1945 Vermont Ave. NW, in Washington, is right across Vermont Avenue from the African American Civil War Memorial, where the names of 209,145 members of the U.S. Colored Troops who served in the Union Army and Navy are listed. The memorial is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most names of any single war memorial.

The memorial and museum are easily accessible via the Washington Metro's Green Line at the U Street/African American Civil War Memorial Station. One of the escalators coming up from the station lets riders off within a few yards of the memorial.

In coming days, a fundraising drive for tax-deductible donations will begin to help pay for the event's costs.

Statue photo courtesy of Stan Watts; Memorial photo by Ed Epstein