DC By the Book

Excerpt: Well Dad was right--- the minute we drove into Washington, Davey and I were glued to the windows so we wouldn't miss anything. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House --- WOW! We could hardly wait to get checked in to the hotel so we could go right back out again.

Excerpt: Our first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. It was awesome. It's supposed to look like a Greek temple, and it has thirty-six columns-- one for each state that was part of the United States in 1865, the year Lincoln was assassinated.

Excerpt: Marian Anderson was a famous opera singer. She wanted to give a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, but the Daughters of the American Revolution, who owned the hall, refused to let her use it because she was black. So U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickles, invited her to sing at the Lincoln Memorial, and she did. A huge crowd came to hear her. And guess what? My grandfather, who worked for Secretary Ickes, went to the concert! He even saved the program.

Excerpt: We got on a Tourmobile, which is a trolley that takes people up and down the National Mall area, and we went to the National Museum of American History. The first thing we saw was a lunch counter from a Woolworth's store. There was a sign above the counter that said you could buy a banana split for thirty-nine cents. Can you believe that! Thirty-nine cents! That for sure was from the olden days.

Excerpt: Our first stop today was the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. But by now I know that museums aren't just about art! This place was really awesome. Airplanes and space capsules were hanging all over the place! The "Black Wings" exhibit was all about black aviators and astronauts.

Excerpt: This afternoon, we went to the Lincoln Park. During the Civil War, the Lincoln Hospital was here. In 1867, two years after Lincoln was assassinated, Congress named in Lincoln Square. It was the first site named in his honor.

Excerpt: Today, we went to the Frederick Douglass House, which sits way up on a hill with a great view of the city. The house has twenty-one rooms--- can you believe that? Douglass moved here with his wife, Anna, in 1877, and the house is the way it was when he died in 1895.

Excerpt: This afternoon we went to the African American Civil War Memorial. In the middle of it, there's this really neat bronze sculpture. On three sides around the sculpture is a Wall of Honor that lists all of the names of the 200,000 "colored" troops that fought in the civil war.