National World War I Memorial (Washington, D.C.)
The National World War I Memorial is a national memorial commemorating the service rendered by members of the United States Armed Forces in World War I. The 2015 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the World War I Centennial Commission to build the memorial in Pershing Park, located at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. The park, which has existed since 1981, also contains the John J. Pershing General of the Armies commemorative work. In January 2016, the design commission selected the submission "The Weight of Sacrifice", by a team consisting of Joseph Weishaar, Sabin Howard, Phoebe Lickwar, and GWWO Architects, as the winning design, which was completed in September 2024. The memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2025.
In 2016, David Rubin Land Collective replaced Forge as landscape architects for the project. Growing pressure to preserve M. Paul Friedberg’s design for Pershing Park while acknowledging the extent of the park as the national memorial required a balanced approach inserting new elements of commemoration and managed change of the original modernist construct. Although the project had met “concept approval” previously, in an effort to describe a thoughtful memorial while revivifying the urban park, a new concept was developed for approval by the agencies with oversight. Where the winning proposal erased a significant portion of the park, the new proposal led by DAVID RUBIN Land Collective struck a balance to ensure both modernist park and memorial could be read simultaneously. Over the course of 39 months, the design team presented alternates negotiating memorial and park elements, resulting in a holistic urban park memorial that met the needs of all parties, including the World War I Commission.
On September 19, 2020, Libby O’Connell, representing the World War I Commission, and David A. Rubin, founding principal of David Rubin Land Collective, presented the revised design to the US Commission of Fine Arts for final approval, and the new concept was able to move forward through construction.
On April 16, 2021, the U.S. flag was raised at the memorial and President Joe Biden spoke at a virtual ceremony opening it to the public. Since its opening day, a bugler has played "Taps" every single day at 5 p.m., regardless of weather or any other inconvenience.
Pershing Park
The Pershing Park site was originally occupied by a variety of 19th-century structures until about 1930, when the federal government took legal title to the block and demolished the structures on it. Legislation officially designating the plot as Pershing Square subsequently was adopted by Congress in 1957. Different groups offered competing proposals for memorials to John J. Pershing, a prominent military figure. These disagreements led to inaction, and by 1962 the square remained bare and often cluttered with trash. In September 1963, District of Columbia officials finally planted grass and flower beds to temporarily beautify the square.In November 1963, the President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue proposed a master plan for the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue NW from the White House to the United States Capitol. The master plan proposed constructing a National Plaza, which would have required the demolition of Pershing Square, the Willard Hotel north of the square, and the two blocks of buildings and streets east of these tracts. The American Legion, among others, kept pushing for a grand statue of Pershing for the square, but all plans for the park were suspended until the Pennsylvania Avenue master plan could be finalized.
National Plaza was never constructed. Instead, a much smaller Freedom Plaza was built that did not require the demolition of Pershing Square. Designs for a statue and memorial to Pershing and for the larger park were finalized in the 1970s, and Pershing Park was constructed simultaneously with Freedom Plaza from 1979 to 1981. The park was slightly enlarged due to the realignment of Pennsylvania Avenue NW along the area's north side. Pershing Park formally opened to the public at 11:45 AM on May 14, 1981. The American Battle Monuments Commission paid the $400,000 for the park.
Pershing Park contains a statue of General Pershing by Robert White, as well as memorial walls and benches behind the statue describing Pershing's achievements in World War I. The sculpture was dedicated in October 1983.
The park also has a fountain, a pond, and flower beds. Pershing Park is owned by the government of the District of Columbia, but administered by the National Park Service as an official unit of the park system.
More than 400 demonstrators were illegally arrested in Pershing Park in September 2002 during anti-globalization protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
National World War I Memorial
In 1931, the people of the District of Columbia erected the District of Columbia War Memorial on the National Mall to honor individuals from the District who had served in the U.S. armed forces in World War I. But the largest of the country's World War I memorials was the Liberty Memorial, a tall tower with an artificial burning pyre atop it, located in Kansas City, Missouri. A Memorial Court surrounded the tower, with a Memory Hall on the east and a Museum Building on the west. Ground was broken on the memorial on November 1, 1921, and it opened on November 11, 1926. But no national memorial commemorating World War I was erected over the next 70 years, which upset World War I veterans.The Liberty Memorial suffered from neglect over the years, and the tower was closed to the public in 1994. A $102 million renovation and expansion effort began in 2000, and the memorial reopened in 2006. The expansion, which added a museum space, a research center, a theater, a cafeteria, and modern storage for the museum's extensive collection, opened in 2006.
The National World War I Museum
With the 2000 Liberty Memorial renovation under way, Senator Kit Bond introduced a resolution giving official federal recognition to the Liberty Memorial as "America's National World War I Museum". The designation was only honorific, but it did not pass.In 2004, with the National World War II Memorial about to open in Washington, D.C., Representative Karen McCarthy introduced legislation to designate the Liberty Memorial as "America's National World War I Museum". In the Senate, Senator Jim Talent sought agreement to amend S. 2400, the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, with identical language. Talent's amendment was unanimously adopted on June 15, 2004, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. President George W. Bush signed the legislation into law on October 28, 2004.
Early legislative efforts to create a National World War I Memorial
The push for a national World War I memorial arose from the successful effort to establish the National World War II Memorial. Legislation to establish the National World War II Memorial was introduced in 1987, and after several unsuccessful efforts passed Congress on May 12, 1993. It was dedicated on May 28, 2004. In fall 2000, Jan Scruggs, CEO of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, proposed rededicating the District of Columbia War Memorial in honor of all World War I veterans. Scruggs claimed that a member of Congress was working on legislation to effect the change, but no bill was introduced in the 106th Congress or the three successive Congresses.In 2008, the American Legion called for conversion of the District of Columbia War Memorial as well. To give added impetus to the effort, local attorney Edwin Fountain formed the World War I Memorial Foundation to solicit funds and lobby for the effort. D.C. Council member Jack Evans and Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s Delegate to Congress, became honorary trustees of the foundation.
In 2007, Representative Ted Poe met Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I. Buckles expressed his dismay that there was no national World War I memorial, and Poe began to champion his cause. Poe introduced legislation the next year, titled the Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act, that authorized the American Battle Monuments Commission to either take over the District of Columbia War Memorial or to build a new one on the same site. The bill also established a World War I Memorial Advisory Board to assist in raising funds to build the memorial. Referred to committee, the bill died there after senators Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill grew concerned that the "new" memorial would compete with the Liberty Memorial in their state. McCaskill and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver introduced legislation to designate the Liberty Memorial as the National World War I Memorial. Separately, Bond and Cleaver introduced legislation to establish a World War I Centennial Commission to develop and implement programs to commemorate the centennial of World War I. These bills all died in committee, as did McCaskill's and Bond's reintroductions in 2009. Cleaver combined the two bills as H.R. 1849, which passed the House but was never taken up by the Senate.
Separately, Senator John Thune introduced legislation to allow Fountain's World War I Memorial Foundation to take over the D.C. War Memorial and re-establish it as the National World War I Memorial. Efforts to rename the D.C. War Memorial gained support when the D.C. Council voted in 2009 to support the Thune bill. Hearings were held on Thune's bill, at which Frank Buckles testified. Representatives from the National Park Service also testified in favor of the bill, noting that there was no longer any room on the National Mall for a major memorial. But it, too, died in committee, as did Poe's companion legislation in the House.
Creating the World War I Centennial Commission
Legislation finally passed in the 112th Congress, compromising by designating both sites as national memorials, as suggested in 2008 by attorney Edwin Fountain. Senator Thune offered his support for this in December 2009.Much activity preceded passage of the final bill. On February 1, 2011, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV introduced compromise legislation which established a World War I Centennial Commission and designated both the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City and the District of Columbia War Memorial in Washington, D.C., as National World War I Memorials. Rockefeller's bill authorized the World War I Memorial Foundation to raise funds and oversee the transformation of the D.C. memorial. But citizens of the District of Columbia were increasingly opposed to losing their hometown memorial. The Rhodes Tavern-D.C. Heritage Society, a prominent local historic preservation organization, advocated turning Pershing Square into the memorial, as a commemorative statue to General Pershing already occupied the site. The World War I Memorial Foundation opposed the Pershing Square site as too isolated by busy D.C. streets and argued that being off the National Mall diminished the importance of the war. The foundation also opposed any new designation for the Liberty Memorial for the same reason.
On February 27, 2011, Frank Buckles died of natural causes, generating an outpouring of emotion, including an effort to have him lie in state in the United States Capitol rotunda. On March 8, Rep. Poe introduced the Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act again, but this time it matched Rockefeller's bill that designated both memorials and created a centennial commission. This represented an agreement by the Missouri delegation, Thune, and Poe. As with his 2009 bill, Poe's new effort authorized the World War I Memorial Foundation to raise funds, design the memorial, and oversee its erection. Poe's bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Committee on Natural Resources. On January 24, 2011, the Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Federal Lands held hearings on the bill.
Opposition to the takeover of the D.C. War Memorial was growing. On July 8, 2011, Del. Norton introduced H.Res. 346, a non-binding resolution which expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the District of Columbia War Memorial should remain dedicated solely to the residents of the District of Columbia. Norton's change in position came about after she came to perceive the redesignation of the memorial as a diminishment of the District of Columbia, similar to the lack of voting rights for District residents. D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray and the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia also opposed the redesignation effort.
With time running out in the 112th Congress, and less than two years before the start of the World War I centennial, on September 10, 2012, Rep. Poe introduced the World War I Centennial Commission Act, which established the World War I Centennial Commission to oversee World War I centennial commemorations, programs, and observances. The bill also designated the Liberty Memorial as the "National World War I Museum and Memorial", a symbolic designation to improve its national prominence prior to the war centennial. In June 2012, Poe agreed to abandon his effort to redesignate the District of Columbia War memorial, and Del. Norton agreed to support construction of a national World War I memorial on the National Mall. Instead, his bill authorized the World War I Memorial Foundation to create a new commemorative work on at Constitution Gardens, on the north side of the National Mall between the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Monument. During markup of the bill by the Committee on Natural Resources on December 5, 2012, the bill was amended to reduce the acreage allotted to and for the memorial to be erected on any federal land within the District of Columbia. The bill was unanimously approved by the committee, It passed the House on a voice vote on December 12. Senator McCaskill offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute which removed the designation of the Liberty Memorial as the National World War I Museum and Memorial, and removed the authority to build a memorial in Washington, D.C. The Senate approved the amended bill on December 21. A conference committee agreed to the Senate's changes. On December 31, the House approved the Senate-amended bill. President Barack Obama signed the legislation into law on January 14, 2013, only establishing the United States World War I Centennial Commission.