People

Paul Jennings was an enslaved man owned by James Madison who lived in the White House during the Madison presidency. He was 15 years old in 1814 when the British invaded Washington, DC, and burned down the presidential residence. Almost fifty years…

The John Stevens Shop is a stone carving workshop based in Rhode Island and currently co-owned by the father and son team of John E. and Nicholas Benson. They have been involved in the design and execution of lettering for inscriptions for four…

Cleve Jones is a human rights activist who created the idea of a memorial quilt commemorating people who have died of AIDS. The first time the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed was October 11, 1987, when it was laid out in full on the…

In 1971, Secretary of the State, Senator, and US Navy veteran John Kerry protested against the Vietnam War in front of the US Capitol when he returned from his tour of duty. As a member of the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he accused the US…

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister and African American civil rights leader. On August 18, 1963, he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A plaque…

Nicholas King worked as a surveyor for the Board of Commissioners of Washington from 1796 to 1797. Named the Surveyor for the City of Washington in June 1803, he served in that position until his death in May 1812. In 1804, King helped to measure and…

Hillel Kook was a Jewish activist and member of the Revisionist Zionist movement who was also known by the alias Peter Bergson. He lived in the United States during World War II and led the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe. In…

L'Enfant was an architect and civil engineer chosen by President George Washington in 1791 to survey and design the new federal city of Washington. L'Enfant designed streets in a grid pattern, and he placed major government buildings and parks in the…

Benjamin H. Latrobe was an architect hired by President Thomas Jefferson to serve as the Surveyor of Public Buildings in 1803. He spent nearly 14 years in Washington supervising the construction and design of public buildings. His largest project was…

Thomas Law was a wealthy Englishman who invested financially and ideologically in the development of the new city of Washington. In 1804 he wrote a pamphlet, published anonymously, proposing a canal from the Anacostia River to the Potomac following…