Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Photo Book Celebrates America's Etched Memorials

Soaring words can inspire us, and simple ones can shame us.

In a new book, called Etched in Stone: Enduring Words From Our Nation's Monuments, author Ryan Coonerty collects immortal words from 50 monuments and memorials, public buildings, walls and sidewalks around the country.

He includes the usual suspects: The Gettysburg Address on the Lincoln Memorial and the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty.

But Coonerty also includes some lesser known memorials, like the words inscribed on the immigration station where thousands of Chinese immigrants were locked up. And the Tribune Tower in Chicago whose South Wall quotes John 8:32, "And Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

GUESTS:

Ryan Coonerty, author of Etched in Stone: Enduring Words From Our Nation's Monuments, and vice president of independent bookstore, Bookshop Santa Cruz

Ed Jackson, Ph.D., Executive Architect for the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial Project; Chair of the Design Committee responsible for the development and administration of the Memorial

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.