On April 14, 1876, the Emancipation Memorial (also known as the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument) was unveiled in a special ceremony in Washington, DC. Upon hearing of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, freed slave Charlotte Scott said, “Colored people lost their best friend on earth.” She then declared that she wanted to honor the fallen President with a memorial. Scott donated the first five dollars she earned as a free woman to her former master for that purpose. Scott’s actions were widely publicized and marked the start of a fund-raising drive for the Emancipation Memorial. The Western Sanitary Commission, a volunteer war-relief agency, took over fund-raising activities, collecting $20,000 before announcing their goal of $50,000. The majority (if not all) of the funds came from freed slaves, primarily African American Union veterans.