President-elect Joe Biden, with his wife Dr. Jill Biden, honored the nearly 400,000 lives lost in the United States to the COVID-19 pandemic in a nationwide memorial. “It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal,” said President-elect Joe Biden at the memorial.
In his first stop after arriving in Washington, D.C., President-elect Joe Biden — along with Dr. Jill Biden, Vice President-elect Harris and Douglas Emhoff — participated in an event lighting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with 400 lights to honor lives lost to COVID-19. This is the first-ever lighting around the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial.
The memorial will feature the lighting around the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and hundreds of towns, cities, tribes, landmarks, and communities all across the country joined the tribute in a national moment of unity on January 19th. Iconic buildings like the Empire State Building in New York, to the Space Needle in Seattle, were illuminated, and other places across America also participated.
“The inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris represents the beginning of a new national journey — one that renews its commitment to honor its fallen and rise toward greater heights in their honor,” said PIC CEO and President of Delaware State University Tony Allen. “In that spirit, it is important that we pay tribute to those we have lost — and their families — and come together to unite our country, contain this virus, and rebuild our nation.”
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first African-American Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and Archbishop of Washington, delivered the invocation for the memorial. Yolanda Adams, known as “the First Lady of Modern Gospel,” performed, and Lori Marie Key, with Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, sang Amazing Grace.
