Freedom Plaza honors Civil Right leader the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who completed his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in the adjacent Willard Hotel before delivering it to a crowd of 200,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the plaza's surface is a partial image of the 1791 L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C., honoring its author Pierre, also known as Peter, C. L'Enfant, who envisioned Pennsylvania Avenue as a great ceremonial street linking the Capitol, which he called Congress's House, and the White House, President's House. Across the plaza, the John A. Wilson Building houses the government of the District of Columbia; built in 1904 under three presidentially appointed commissioners, it later stood at the center of the city's regained elected mayor and city council in 1974 after a campaign for home rule, and it is named for former Council Chair John A. Wilson, a champion of civic rights for Washingtonians. Nearby, the National Theatre has presented live theater on this spot since 1835, entertaining every First Family since it opened, and President Lincoln's son Tad was attending a performance there on the evening of the president's assassination at Ford's Theatre.
