Three Sunday Walks Among the Cherry Blossoms

Join Prof. Joel Swerdlow ’74 for a series of walks and lectures about D.C.  Each tour is available for purchase individually or as a package for all three.

Sunday Cherry Blossoms Walk #1: Looking for What Abraham Lincoln Called “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

Sunday, March 28, 1:00-3:00 pm
Meet at the base of the Lincoln Memorial

Route: Lincoln Memorial to FDR Memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial site

We will re-create a major speech from dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 (the uncensored version). Learn why Lincoln wanted to enshrine slavery in the U.S. Constitution until the beginning of the 20th century, and examine how Hollywood and television have done so much to change our feelings about the Lincoln Memorial.

We will then take the short walk to the FDR Memorial, where we will look for evidence of FDR’s greatest failing, which most of his critics still fail to recognize, and his vision of an Economic Bill of Rights.  Ending at the site of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, we will discuss how his views about economic justice and war still challenge us.  We will also discuss the untruths (or misleading statements) upon which the creators of each memorial relied. 

Walk #2:  Looking for Power in the U.S. and Finding Public Opinion

Sunday, April 11, 1:00-3:00 pm
Meet in front of the National Archives

Route: National Archives to Constitution Gardens to where Supreme Court should be 

On display at the National Archives—and treated as equal in importance to the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights—are briefs from Marbury v. Madison.

We will explore how this case has become one of America’s most important conceptual exports to other democracies (hint: central to this story is the death of major civil rights legislation). We will also discuss what the Founders believed about war-making, and why we have not formally declared war since June 5, 1942. Finally, we will try to figure out why, at his confirmation hearings in 2006, now-Chief Justice Roberts refused to say whether Congress can end a war by cutting off funds.

Walk #3:  In Search of Peace

Sunday, April 25, 1:00-3:00 pm
Meet near the east end of the Vietnam Memorial

Route: Vietnam, Korea, World Wars I and II memorials to the “Peace Statue” and the site of the future Disabled Veterans Memorial

Thanks in large part to the success of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, war memorials now dominate a large and growing portion of the nation’s most respected landscape. How and why this has happened teaches us much about how our democracy works. 

We will discuss how Maya Lin’s undergraduate sketches became one of Washington, D.C.’s most popular sites;  why Americans still do not want to know the full story of Iwo Jima; whether the road to peace lies in promoting democracy, and more. At the conclusion of this, the final walk, we will weave all three weeks together in a discussion that seeks ideas and insights.