TUESDAY, MAY 24 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 B3
Before the
speeches and the
singing, the
poetry and the
picture-taking,
Robert D. Moton
and his wife,
Jennifer Hardy-
Moton , stood in
front of the
Lincoln Memorial
and let me pester them with
questions. Suddenly, they
realized something: They had
both visited the Lincoln
Memorial in 1985, Jennifer on a
seventh-grade class trip, Robert
on a family vacation.
“We were here at the same
time and didn’t know it,” Robert
said. It was another entry for the
Moton family history book. The
pages of that metaphorical book
are filled with the best and the
worst of our nation’s past.
Robert is the great-grandson
of Robert Russa Moton , the
Tuskegee Institute head who w as
the only African American
invited to speak at the dedication
of the Lincoln Memorial on May
30, 1922. The centennial of that
event was marked Sunday by the
Lincoln Group of the District of
Columbia and the National Park
Service.
The dedication in 1922 was
segregated. Fifty-seven years
after the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln , Black people
were made to sit apart from
White people. And the first draft
of the speech by Moton was
deemed too confrontational by
the White organizers. William
Howard Taft , the U.S. chief
justice and former president,
sent Moton a telegram asking
him to cut 500 words and not
include “propaganda” touching
on the unfulfilled aspects of
Lincoln’s promise of equality.
Two months ago, I wrote
about how the Lincoln Group
was hoping to provide some
redress at the centennial. They
were looking for Moton
descendants. Someone who read
my column found Robert and his
cousin Consuela Austin and
funded their visit. Robert, 43,
and Jennifer, 48, flew in from
Atlanta with their 9-year-old
daughter, Parker. Consuela, 53,
came up from Kissimmee, Fla.
The four had seats in the front
row. They stood when David
Kent , president of the LincolnGroup, introduced them. The
Sunday ceremony was about
history, but also about how
yesterday reverberates through
today.
Edna Greene Medford , an
emeritus professor of history
from Howard University, spoke
of the “privilege and burden”
Moton faced at the dedication. It
was only later, she said, that
figures such as Marian
Anderson and Martin Luther
King Jr. were able to use the
memorial as a backdrop to
illustrate how the
exceptionalism our countryclaimed for itself was more of an
aspiration than a reality for
some Americans.
Charlotte Morris , the head of
what is now Tuskegee University,
also spoke of those aspirations,
saying that Lincoln might shed a
“mournful tear” at the state of
the nation, when the cancer of
the “big lie” threatens to infect
state legislatures and some
factions try to unravel the rights
guaranteed to each of us.
Frank Smith , director of the
African American Civil War
Museum, spoke of the
Emancipation Proclamation, of
Lincoln’s desire for African
American troops, of Smith’s own
work with the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee to secure voting
rights for Black citizens in the
1960 s. “You can win those rights,
lose those rights, and then have
to win them all over again,”
Smith said.
When the speeches were over,
all the attendees were invited to
stand at the memorial for a big
group photo. There were Lincoln
buffs, Tuskegee grads, Civil War
reenactors and random tourists.
A few of the tourists wore red
“Make America Great Again”
hats. I wondered if they heard
what had been said and whether
they believed it.
Later, in the cool of the
memorial’s hall, under the gaze
of the massive Lincoln statue
sculpted by Daniel Chester
French , I spoke with the Motons
again.
“It’s part of us,” Robert said of
his great-grandfather’s
experiences. It’s a story he heard
growing up, how his namesake
ancestor spoke on this very spot,
his words censored.
“What you want to say and
what you are allowed to say are
different,” Consuela said. Still,
she takes pride in what Moton
achieved: the head of a college, a
confidant of presidents.
Parker, a third-grader, said her
favorite parts of the ceremony
were when Washington actress
Felicia Curry sang the national
anthem and a spiritual. “We talk
with Parker about the history of
her family,” said Jennifer. “We
tell her that greatness lies within
her bloodline.”
They tell her that nothing
should deter her from achieving
her dreams.Doing the r ight thing at Lincoln Memorial centennialJohn
Kelly's
WashingtonJOHN KELLY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Parker Moton a t the Lincoln Memorial for a ceremony m arking t he
100th anniversary of its dedication. Robert Russa Moton, her
great-great-grandfather, was the only African American who spoke
at the dedication. His descendants attended the centennial.Human Services. Connally also
admitted threatening a public
health official in Massachusetts,
the office said.
Prosecutors said Connally, who
pleaded guilty to a single charge
of making threats against a
federal official, was angry about
coronavirus vaccine mandates.
He is t o be sentenced Aug. 4 in
U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
— Paul DugganPolice investigate
report of road rageU.S. Park Police are searching
for a driver and a passenger
armed with a handgun in a road
rage incident, one of a series that
happened on the Baltimore-
Washington Parkway on Friday
afternoon, officials said.
Multiple incidents were
reported on the parkway between
1 p.m. and 5 p.m. and involved a
black Ford Fusion sedan driven
by a woman with a male
passenger, t he statement said.
Police said the man was armed
with a handgun in one incident.
Park Police said the
investigation is ongoing and
declined to release additional
details on the incidents. Police
asked those with information
about the incidents to call 202-
379-4877.
— Jasmine HiltonMARYLAND
Man pleads guilty
to threatening Fauci
A West Virginia man who
admitted threatening to kill
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top
infectious-diseases expert,
pleaded guilty to a federal offense
Monday and could be sentenced
to up to 10 years in prison, the U.S.
attorney’s office in Maryland said.
Thomas P. Connally, 56, of
Snowshoe, W.Va., used an
anonymous account from a
provider of secure, encrypted
email services to send messages
to Fauci, threatening him and
members of his family,
prosecutors said. One of the
emails described by prosecutors
said Fauci, o ne of President
Biden’s chief medical advisers,
would be “dragged into the
street” along with his loved ones,
and “ beaten to death, and set on
fire.”
The threats occurred Dec. 28,
202 0, to this past July,
prosecutors said.
As part of a plea deal, the U.S.
attorney’s office said, Connally
also admitted threatening Francis
Collins, who was director of the
National Institutes of Health at
the time, and Rachel Levine, a
former Pennsylvania secretary of
health who is now a top official of
the Department of Health and
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washingtonpost.com/local/lotteryLOTTERIES“What you want tosay and what youare allowed to sayare different.”
Consuela Austin,
great-granddaughter of Tuskegee
Institute head Robert Russa Moton,
whose speech was censored at the
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