A Spy’s-Eye View

May 2012

From Peter Earnest, Executive Director, International Spy Museum

Willard Hotel: One of the hotel’s original owners may have married a Confederate spy, but fast forward to 1963 and Martin Luther King finished writing his “I Have a Dream” speech here.
International Spy Museum: From hot air balloon overhead recon to Harriet Tubman’s undercover work as a Union spy, Civil War espionage is revealed here to have been bold, dangerous, and effective.
National Portrait Gallery: During the Civil War, when it was transformed into a hospital, poet Walt Whitman nursed the Union wounded here and also attended Lincoln’s second inaugural ball in the same space.
Lincoln Memorial: While honoring Lincoln, it was also the stage for Marian Anderson’s 1939 performance after being denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall and the setting for King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.
Frederick Douglass House: Cedar Hall, the home of the famous abolitionist who was born a slave, is a beautiful place to contemplate the extraordinary changes Douglass helped make for his fellow African Americans.
Ford’s Theatre: From the box where Confederate spy John Wilkes Booth committed his horrible crime to the alley where he made his escape, the Theatre reminds us the tragic loss of Lincoln.
The Supreme Court: In 1857 the Court delivered the infamous Dred Scott decision. In 1954 the Court redeemed itself with Brown v. Board of Education.
The Capitol: Home of the US Congress which generates lots of hot air but also produced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
FBI Headquarters: The Bureau was a leader in fighting the Klan in the 1920s. Forty years later, it targeted black nationalist groups as one part of COINTELPRO. It also infamously tried to discredit Martin Luther King.
President Lincoln’s Cottage: The Home was established in 1851 as “asylum for old and disabled veterans.” Abraham Lincoln lived here during much of Civil War and here he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.