The National Lincoln Monument Association aimed to commemorate the  life of Abraham Lincoln through a permanent monument to the martyred president.  Gathered together by Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882), a prominent African  American abolitionist and Presbyterian minister, the Association originally hoped to  open a Washington, D.C. school for freedmen and their children that would honor  Lincoln’s memory. The school never came to fruition, but the Association eventually  organized and had built a small monument to Lincoln in southeast Washington, D.C., in  Lincoln Park (the large monument with the seated statue and columned building in the Tidal Basin was built much later, finished in 1922). Included in the Celebration  documents is a speech by William Howard Day (1825-1900), an editor and educator  who became the first African American school board member and president in the  United States. The speech was abridged and edited by association members.