On October 10, 1987, 2,000 same-sex couples pledged their vows in a mass wedding behind the National Museum of Natural History and in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. The location allowed the group to protest the lack of recognition of…

Since the 1770s, American indigenous people have always served in the US military at a higher rate than other groups. In 1994, a bipartisan congressional effort passed the Native American Veterans’ Memorial Establishment Act to authorize the creation…

In 1985, Elizabeth Ratcliff, a former English teacher from California, proposed a national monument to peace. The monument was approved by Congress within two years and Hains Point was selected as the site. The Peace Garden Project Committee, led by…

In 1996, the Washington Interdependence Council began planning a memorial to Benjamin Banneker, an African American scientist and surveyor who helped map the boundaries of the District of Columbia. Congress authorized the plan, and the Council was…

In 1986, Maurice Barboza and Lena Santos Ferguson won Congressional authorization to honor African Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War with a monument on the Mall. Congress authorized the memorial, but followed precedent by not allocating…

On March 11, 1988, deaf students from Gallaudet University in Washington, DC marched to the steps of the Capitol protesting the selection of Elisabeth A. Zinser, a hearing person, as the University's 7th president. Student leaders directed the crowd…

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…

The artist in this photograph is carving one of the many inscriptions found in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Calligrapher and stone carver John Benson, designed the layout and typeface of the inscriptions. Each letter was carved and…

In April 1987 a one-ton fiberglass Allosaurus sculpture was moved into the National Museum of Natural History.  A crowd formed on the Mall at the steps of the museum to watch the dinosaur lifted into the building with a winch. The 20-foot-long model…

In March 1990, disability rights activists gathered at the west front of the Capitol to pressure the House of Representatives to pass a disability rights bill. The bill passed in the Senate the year before, but it stalled in the House. Nearly 1,000…