Folk-Americana Music Marked the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's Assassination in Ford's Theatre

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Folksinger Judy Collins played a key role commemorating the last happy moments of Abraham Lincoln, exactly 150 years later to the exact minute, the evening of April 14th. The National Park Service and Ford's Theatre collaborated to produce the event inside and outside the theatre where Lincoln was assassinated.

This morning's Washington Post reports:

"Inside, the empty president’s box, lighted by a Victorian chandelier and hung with gold drapes,was festooned with American flags, as it was on the fateful night.

“'We have come together on this night at this time because of what happened within these walls 150 years ago,' Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, said in opening the ceremony. 'The flag-draped box will always be a part of our history.'

"Folk singer Judy Collins led the audience in singing 'Amazing Grace,' and a choral group sang 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'

"At 10:15 p.m., about the time Lincoln was shot, the lights dimmed in the theater and the performers all turned to gaze up at the box.

"A band played the hymn 'Old Hundreth,' and the audience filed out onto 10th Street, where the crowd had gathered with candles amid the theater’s sidewalk gaslights.

“'It’s very moving,' said Marianne Schaad, 60,of Arlington, as she stood in the crowd. 'It’s like reaching back in time.'

"Aaron Freeman, 22, also of Arlington,said: 'You couldn’t not be at an event like this. I’d be kicking myself if I didn’t come. ... We’re in the exact spot where one of the most important figures in United States history was killed. And that’s incredible.'

"James McPherson, the dean of Civil War historians, writes in 'The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters,' a new book of essays, that Lincoln 'could not have anticipated the reverence that millions would feel for him in future ages.'

“'But he was intensely aware ... that this struggle to preserve the Union "is not altogether for today — It is for a vast future also,’” McPherson wrote.

“'We cannot escape history,' Lincoln wrote in his annual message to Congress in 1862, in the midst of the war. 'We ... will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.'”

This morning's Washington Post has more on Tuesday night's event, plus plenty of wonderfully linked stories on related topics, including the Lincoln presidency, things that would have been different but were changed because of the assassination, and the end of the Civil War. That, and the story from which the above quotes are taken, is at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/150-years-later-tributes-in-the-rain-to-lincoln-on-the-day-of-his-assassination/2015/04/15/7de4d154-e358-11e4-81ea-0649268f729e_story.html


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