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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
Matthew Cudmore (00:00)
Welcome to the show story behind the stone podcast where he talks service sacrifice and story. I'm joined today by the interim executive director of the historic congressional cemetery in Washington, DC, AJ or Lecov. Welcome to the show. It's so great to have you on the show.
A.J. Orlikoff (00:17)
⁓ you know, thank you so much for having me. I relish the opportunity to talk about history at pretty much any opportunity. So I'm really excited and happy to be here.
Matthew Cudmore (00:26)
Yeah, yeah, it's great to have you join. We've had this call set up for some time. It's been awesome to see your journey, you know, with the historic Congressional Cemetery. I will call it shorthand from now, the Congressional Cemetery. AJ, if I could just give listeners a sense of kind of who you are and how you ended up in this role, would love to have that context for them.
A.J. Orlikoff (00:46)
Oh goodness, you know, I always introduce myself with what I am and that's I'm a history nerd. You know, I've always sort of been a history buff from a young age. I love history. My dad at age nine, my bedtime stories were stories of World War II that he just knew he was a history buff. He was in the sports industry, but he was a history buff and he really nurtured my passion I had for history. And I was crazy enough to go out and try to do a career in history. It kind of bounced around. I want to teach high school. I want to teach college. So I want to get a doctorate, you know, and I kind of landed in
field
called public history, which is kind of what it sounds like, right? And I really view myself as sort of a history translator almost, where I can understand what the academics who write like 700 page books, because I got a master's degree, I can understand that. But then I can take it in, I can kind of filter it and be a conduit for people who don't have time to read the 700 page book. And so I really specialize in taking the information in and putting it out in a way that is meaningful and accessible for people. And that's really my passion.
And so I've worked at a few different places in my career. As you can imagine, I'm a big fan of military history and learning about military history. I grew up in the Southern Virginia in the United States, the Norfolk, Virginia area. If you know anything about that area, it's the largest Navy base in the world. The US Navy fleet is based out of there. where all the aircraft carriers are. So a big military town. My parents were never in the military, but again, I had that passion. So I worked for the Navy as a contractor, moved up to Northern Virginia, worked for the Army as a
director at museum and then the opportunity came up to be the director of programming at historic congressional cemetery had to take it too much amazing military history here not to and and then you know very recently I was we had staff departure of our president and then I was made an interim executive director here so I'm
I'm in the chair here giving us direction. So they say, I guess that's what the title implies. So that's sort of my journey here. And I'm just so happy to be here because there is so much history.
Matthew Cudmore (02:46)
a beautiful cemetery and obviously so much history. We'd love to just give an establishing shot for our listeners. What is the historic congressional cemetery? We know it's in Washington, DC. What are kind of the highlights around the space?
A.J. Orlikoff (02:59)
When most people hear cemetery in Washington DC, everybody thinks the same here still, right? It's Arlington, even though it's technically not in DC, it's right there. It's America's National Cemetery. It's where all of America's, you I went there recently and saw Audie Murphy, you know, for example, you know, it's an amazing place. I highly recommend everybody going there.
haven't been. But Congressional is kind of the first national cemetery, although again I say that very carefully, with a lowercase n, are more specifically the first cemetery of national memory.
So we were private then, 1807 was our birthday, private now, we're actually owned by a church, Christ Church, Washington Parish. But what makes this really interesting of being that first cemetery of national memory, it's such an amazing portal to experience history because out here in our 35 acres of grounds,
you know, we have a big outdoor history museum, except it's not curated by a curator. It's curated by the people who lived and made the history. And we have it in every type of history you can imagine, every area of history you can imagine, every time period you can imagine from 1807 to now. It's in some way captured at Congressional. So it's really interesting. But so that's the history angle. I think that's really cool. But I know a lot of other people don't find history cool.
But I know what I'll do a lot of people find cool.
Cause we take that history and then we combine it with other things that really come from the community. We have an active off leash dog walking program with over 1000 dogs in it. So again, it's a cemetery that's like Arlington. can walk your dog in. We have live outdoor historic immersive theater, soul strolls in the fall. We have, ⁓ we're approaching a level zero Arboretum status. And so we're a place of urban Oasis of environmental stewardship.
And we're really just a place that people, living people, want to come. and by the way, we're still an active burial ground on top of all that. So we're a lot of different things sort of here. But I would say what really unites us, really unites all those things is that we're kind of known as a community cemetery, a place of community. And even more, think, curiously, lively cemetery, which is an interesting thing to say, right?
Matthew Cudmore (05:24)
Yeah.
It truly is a developing, I think you used the words in a previous conversation, cultural center. what's your, your kind of most proud initiative that you've seen come to life, in your time with, the cemetery.
A.J. Orlikoff (05:39)
Oh my goodness,
my most proud initiative. Well, I have to say this because I could take this a lot of different ways, right? I'm a history nerd, I love history. I'd love to say it's like the nerdiest history tour I ever did. But to be honest with you, that wouldn't be true. And I have to be truthful, right? And so the thing I'm most proud of is the service that we provide to families. Because we are an active duty cemetery. We are an active, we are an active duty, we are an active burial ground.
Matthew Cudmore (05:55)
Hmm.
Hmm.
A.J. Orlikoff (06:09)
we are currently serving bereaved families. And so while I love the military history, I love soul strolls, I love the dogs, I love all of these things that make us special. But in my opinion, we can't have any of that if we're not serving bereaved families, these families that give us their people. And if we're not serving bereaved families with a sense of honor and reverence and respect,
Matthew Cudmore (06:14)
Yeah.
A.J. Orlikoff (06:40)
and the care that they deserve, we really can't have any of those other things. And so I am most proud of that we are a place that gave, and I hope they don't mind me saying this, the Cybert family, whose father was interred here a couple of years ago. He was a Korean War veteran and he was a Marine that was at the Chosun Reservoir, one of the Chosun few. If you're a military historian, you're aware of that. They suffered greatly. So this is someone who was a hero.
of our country and that we were able to provide his family with a place of solemn respect. so while again it's so amazing, it's so awesome, I'm most proud that you know we made the Cybert's feel welcomed and that's something that's really really important to me is that we're always always in service to families here. So again that's just I have to say that's the thing I'm most proud of. I wouldn't say it's my favorite but I'm most proud of that we're
Matthew Cudmore (07:36)
It's.
A.J. Orlikoff (07:39)
We're a burial grounds that is respectful and stands for the right values.
Matthew Cudmore (07:44)
Yeah, that's
beautiful, AJ. I wanted to ask a follow-up question on that. Why do you think families are choosing the Congressional Cemetery? What makes it so special for them?
A.J. Orlikoff (07:50)
Sure.
It kind of links back to us being a place of life. There are many, many families that come here that say, and if my friend Loretta Newman listens to this, she'll know exactly where I'm going with this. Daniel R. Smith is the late husband of a good friend of mine, Loretta Newman, and she buried her husband here a couple of years ago. And Daniel Smith, he's actually thought to be the last surviving son of an enslaved person.
in the United States, sort of, and he passed away. So actually his father was enslaved at one point. And so, you know, it's an interesting history in itself, but, you know, it's like, why did Daniel choose Congressional Cemetery? Why did they do that? He loved dogs. So he loved dogs and he loved the idea of being here with happy dogs that are here and just wagging their tails and they're just happy to be outside and off leash and with their owners and everything. And so, you know, that's something that I think really
unites everybody that comes here, right, is that they want to be in a place that's lively. They want to be in a place that engages dogs. They want to be in a place that respects the environment. And they want to be in place of happy families at movie night, coming out and sharing laughs. They all like this and they embrace that. They embrace sort of our different view of what a place of rest can be. And so many, many come for that very reason.
Matthew Cudmore (09:24)
that's really special. When visitors are coming to Washington DC and they're coming to the Congressional Cemetery, can they expect to see at the cemetery? What would be some of those highlights?
A.J. Orlikoff (09:34)
Well, again, I would be remiss if I again just talked about the dogs. Again, we are, I do have an active off leash dog walking program. We're open to those off leash dogs all the time. So something that any visitor needs to know is there's probably going to be off leash dogs. We are closed every Saturday, 11 to three, two dogs. But otherwise we have to have a funeral or an event or a grounds treatment or something like that going on.
there's going to be dogs here. So that's just something to be really cognizant of. And it just kind of shows you that while it's an amazing program and I love it, it does come with kind of like, wow. You have to explain to people that there's dogs here. Again, very different place. But dogs aside, again, we really are that remarkable. I call it a one of a kind portal into the past where
No matter what type of history you're interested into, you can see it, right? And so, well, we have over 65,000 interments, 25,000 memorial stones, again, it's been active since 1807. And you can expect on a tour there, we have self-guided tours, we have guided experience and everything like that. You can really expect to see a lot of notable historical figures, as the name implies. We have over 180 memorials.
for Congress, again, they were all back then men, Congress men, buried at Congressional Cemetery, everything memorialized, I should say. And then, because not all of them are actually here, many of them are Senate haves, but still, and then of course, a lot of notable names, know, sometimes you think about like the most notable, what makes someone more notable than the others, but all that aside, you know, some of the people I think most people would know.
Matthew Brady, the Civil War era photographer and really known as the father of photojournalism. We have Belle Vallock wood, who is the first woman to legally run for president in the United States. We have and of course a women's rights pioneer.
We have more locally Mayor Marion Barry, DC's mayor for life. We have a gay corner. We're a very gay cemetery. have technical sergeant Leonard Matlovich. And then we also have J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI. And again, Elbridge Gary, the only signer of the Declaration of Independence buried in Washington, DC. And that's just a few little slice of sort of the different narratives you can see here, but it goes on. mean, we have tons and tons of
different historical experiences. So we have the history there. And then we also, of course, have the other big piece, which is the environment. I describe Congressional as sort of an urban oasis. And this is a place where you can come, even though it's Washington, D.C., even though it's a big city, you can come to Congressional. And by the time you walk a few hundred feet down,
It's quiet. It's a place of other than maybe a dog, a dog running around like you hear him right behind you click clacking on the on the pavement. It's pretty silent and pretty silent congressional cemetery and it is a place where you can come and see nature. You can come and kind of be a place that's just a way a place to take a walk a place to just get away from the DC. I mean, I think we have a reputation for hustle and bustle and having lived here.
I can definitely say that's true. We all work really, really hard in this city. It's a really work culture forward here and we all need a place to get away. And Congressional really offers that. And just get your eye on some trees. have apiaries, we have bees, we have honey you can buy. We have cherry blossoms, DC's sort of iconic pink blossom. One of the best places in the city to see that without the tidal basin that's...
really crowded and without feeling like you're drowning in a sea of humanity or a great place to see the cherry blossoms. And yeah, so yeah, a little bit of dogs, a little bit of history, a little bit of nature, sort of all these things in one. And I guarantee you there's something you're interested in in what we're doing.
Matthew Cudmore (13:14)
you
Yeah, you talked about, you know, getting to some of those stories. Yeah, I agree. You know, we have only so much time to chat today, but the, you know, it feels like we're sort of just scratching the surface of everything that's available to see, hear, smell, cherry blossoms, dogs, all of do you have any stories of individuals buried there that really, you know, have really impacted you or resonate with you?
A.J. Orlikoff (13:55)
Sure, there's two that really resonate with me and these relate to really service and sort of integrity and meaning behind service. One thing I'll mention is Belle Vallock Wood. She was the first, you're not supposed to have favorites, but she's one of my favorites. She's probably my favorite, interred resident here. And again, I don't have much time, but I encourage everybody to look up Belle Vallock Wood because she was absolutely incredible.
She's born in New York and she's a teacher and in her early life, she's only in her 30s. Her husband's a farmer and he dies. And she has a young daughter at the time and she had been, she's an educated woman. She had always been, and this has kind of been the zeitgeist at the time. This is like 1840s, 50s, 50s.
the women's rights movement was really gaining steam at this time and she was a proponent of it and said you know what I'm not going to sit here in my grief and just be you know kind of passive I'm going to make the world a better place for my daughter.
And I'm just like, really? You mean on the worst day of your life and you just put your husband in the ground, you go right to, I'm sure she grieved, you go right to, want to make the world a better place. And so she travels to Washington, DC to do that. Cause she said, this is where I can make the biggest difference.
and she came here and she went to law school, she remarries, and she goes to law school and she is just tearing down every obstacle in her way. They try to deny her law degree and a few other female sort of applicants and everything, they pass all the tests, they get everything, it's time, you pass the bar, you're ready, and they wouldn't give her the license without any other woman, and they had to appeal directly to President Ulysses S. Grant.
for their law degrees and thankfully he gave them. He gave them them. And you know, this is the thing where she becomes a lawyer and a great attorney and she becomes the first woman to practice for the Supreme Court.
and they had to change the rules of the building and the chamber to allow her in to argue her case. So when we talk about trailblazers and breaking down barriers, mean, almost quite literally, she's like kicking in these doors that just were closed before. And then of course, this is 1884 and 1888, becomes the first woman to run for president. She was the nominee for the National Equal Rights Party and actually does get votes. So it's over 4,000 votes. Remember all men then. So I'm always really inspired by
know, Lockwood's activism and her energy and how she does that. And every time I feel like, man, today's just like, I think of Belva and I'm just like, no, she didn't give up, you know, I'm going to go through and do my stuff too. So that's, that's one. Another one that I say is really important to me personally is something I mentioned before, and that is our belovedly affectionately nicknamed Gay Corner.
with technical sergeant Leonard Matlovich buried here. Lengthy topic, so again, forgive me for a lengthy explanation. So Leonard Matlovich, this is, know, in the era in the United States when gay service members were banned from serving. It wasn't even don't ask, don't tell. It was like, oh, we find out you're homosexual, you're gay, you're gonna get kicked out of the Army or the Navy or whatever it was. And so he was an Air Force member.
He volunteered to serve in Vietnam. He went to Vietnam, served combat tours in Vietnam, gets a Bronze Star for valor for actions under enemy fire. And he gets a Purple Heart for wounds he sustained in Vietnam from an enemy landmine. And while, and sort of this is later in his career, while he's in the hospital, he remarks on that at the time he was starting to have a dawning realization that he was gay. And he said that the pain from his wounds
that he had from the enemy landmine were actually a benefit to him because it took away from the pain and the shame of being gay. And that just shows you what the attitude was like back then in the 1960s, like 1960s and 70s. It was really bad. You know, I think we sometimes can lose sight of just how bad the attitude was for gay people in all of American society. And so he decided because he had such a
flawless sterling service record to challenge the gay ban the military and he comes out and get encouraged over and look him up Leonard Matlovich He courageously challenges this ban in the military. He teams up to some other activists Frank Kameny specifically one of the founders of the modern-day rights movement and he He basically comes out comes out as gay to his commanding officer hands in the sort of discharge orders
and sort of the commanding officer's like, what does this mean? What do mean you're gay? Like you're homosexual? And he says, well, it means Brown versus the Board of Education. Because he knew this would set off a legal fight because the Air Force had an exception policy for the service members that were great. Again, I won't get bogged down in all the legalese, but the point is he's coming out at a time when no one else, when not a lot of other people were, and he goes on the cover of Time Magazine as the first named gay person to appear in a major publication. So not just...
⁓ there's a gay person. There's a photo of them. It's like, no, I am Leonard Matlovich. I am gay. I am in the Air Force. What are you going to do about it? And sort of he challenged the challenge this and so he advocated for the rest of his life. But what makes him particularly unique to us is that in 1980s, as he continued his advocacy, he unfortunately contracted HIV and that developed into AIDS during the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
And essentially he does end up succumbing to the disease in 1987. But he believed, and he was inspired by some visits to some European cemeteries where they treated, and particularly Pereira Chase in Paris, of how some gay graves there were kind of like rallying cries for the gay community. Like famously Oscar Wilde's grave, you can go there today, has the lipstick marks all around it. And that was the case when he visited too.
And he said, we don't have this in America. We need this. We need a place for gay people to come celebrate their heroes and realize how far we've come. And he decided to become an advocate in death. And so he actually designs his own tombstone to be as provocative as possible. And it says, and again, you might have some images, but again, anyone can look this up on our website. You I am a gay Vietnam veteran and no name, just I am a gay Vietnam veteran.
When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. And it's just so provocative and it's just so, so inspirational. And I just think anybody that comes there and sees that is moved by that. And today really his advocacy and death worked because other gay people and queer people chose to be buried right next to him in the same vicinity, a gay corner, and it created
The only, to my knowledge, there are other gay sections of cemeteries, but the only LGBTQ plus section of the cemetery organically created by the community.
Matthew Cudmore (21:11)
it's really interesting that you have kind of the self organized section, you have a bunch of meaningful stories, I'm sure in there, what are the other sections that that are kind of notable in the congressional cemetery that you would want to draw attention to?
A.J. Orlikoff (21:27)
Absolutely.
So again, just to get a little bit more into the institutional history, Congressional was founded by Christ Church. And so it's still a property of Christ Church today, Christ Church, Washington, Paris, another historic institution here in Washington, D.C. Thomas Jefferson, parishion there one time, you know, so it was a group of Christ Church parishioners who originally purchased the parcel of land in 1807. And then they promptly, once they made their money back from sales, they gave it to the church itself to be their church burial ground, even though
know, we're about a mile and a half away from each other, sort of geographically. So really, we have many of those early founders from that period, Admiral Thomas Chintingi, who was the first admiral and first commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. He's buried right next to the gatehouse, right out there in the building on there. He's right out there. And so we have many and many of these these individuals that were associated with their first founding of the cemetery. And that includes congressmen as well. So again,
You might wonder why we're called a congressional cemetery. That's something we're constantly getting. And that's not because we're federal or, you know, or because, you know, we were a federal or anything like that. No, it's because Congress was a customer in the 1820s and then and twenties, there's no train to take your body home fast. And so there's no embalming. There's no refrigeration. You can get wrong going with this. You have a body because of decomposition. You need to get into the ground pretty quick. And so they had a need. And so they started coming here.
And over time, because the interments were here and we have sort of a, basically it sort of got the nickname congressional barrier ground or congressional cemetery and the name stuck. And so again, sort of we have two sections here of rows of cenotaphs. Again, I'm not trying to get too bogged down in names. I know it's an audio format, but I'll paint a picture. Cenotaph is Latin for empty tomb. Lowercase C, cenotaph.
would be like if I died tomorrow, but I wanted to be buried at sea and all my remains are at sea, but my wife missed me and wanted to buy a stone here in Congressional Cemetery and it's just a normal looking stone, that's my name, well that's a cenotaph, it's just an empty tomb. Our cenotaphs, upper case C, were specifically graves designed by Capitol architect Benjamin Latrobe for members of Congress, these graves. And so those are upper case C and they would often give, whether the congressman was buried here or not,
they would give a congressman, man, I get all men back then, one of these stones just in memory of them if they died. Like for example, we have a Senate half for John Quincy Adams, one of our presidents, and we have that because he died while Congress was in session. He died on the House floor, Capitol floor. So we have one for him just because even though he's not buried here, he's buried in Massachusetts, he died while it was in session, so he got one. So.
Matthew Cudmore (24:20)
Yeah.
A.J. Orlikoff (24:21)
That's
definitely some of the other sections. And again, I can just keep going on and on about the different sections we have. But I think I've captured, I think some of the key highlights there.
Matthew Cudmore (24:30)
When you're wandering through the cemetery, what are some of the unique architectural or details on the markers themselves? Are there any that are kind of unique that you'd want to draw attention to?
A.J. Orlikoff (24:40)
Yeah, absolutely. So we are a National Historic Landmark. We were awarded that status in 2011. so according to the National Historic Landmarks, makes us so identifying are many of the graves themselves, but also many of the historic gates and walls and fences were a really great example. Although some of that has been updated since we're actually pretty close to how the layout of the cemetery was back in the prior centuries. And so the historic character of the property is definitely captured in
how it is, particularly to the landscape itself is quite interesting. It's one of the only places in Washington DC to come where you can experience what the original landscape was like here in Washington City. Because it's not graded, it's not made flat because you can't because it's a burial ground. So there's natural hills and undulations that you can kind of see what this area was like, for example, when different tribal groups.
were sort of living here prior to European colonialism. So you certainly do have a lot of different identifying features. I really like, personally, love that our graves are a wonderful pastiche and mix of old and new. I love it, love it, love it. It is such a cool landscape feature.
to see a historic grave that was put in there in the 1830s or 40s, right next to a more modern construction. We have a very famous parabola sort of design. That's a Mobius arch sort of right next to a historic cemetery, historic section. we have like, know, a major general of the armies grave from like the 1840s right next to one that was installed like, you know, a decade ago. And they couldn't be more different, but that just overlay of sort of old with new.
is throughout the entire institution. So I really love it. We also have the historic chapel that was built in 1903. We have our historic gatehouse, where I'm speaking to you from now, that was built in 1923. Those are sort of our major structures. And really, again, just going through and seeing the graves themselves is just so, so wonderful. So those are just some of the things that I really enjoy about here. And of course the cherry blossoms too, but I don't know if that's in...
your question, but I gotta stand the cherry blossoms whenever I can. They're so beautiful.
Matthew Cudmore (27:07)
Absolutely. I wanted to ask you, you have the Cemetery Speakers series. What are some of the topics that folks are sharing kind of in these sessions?
A.J. Orlikoff (27:19)
Right, so this is a program that I created to...
sort of give a little bit more than a docent tour. know, a docent tour is limited, right? Hey, we can go out, can tell you about, but there's only so much we can tell you, you when we're out there with a clipboard or a notebook or something, right? So Cemetery Speaker Series was a way for us to one, partner with the community. We're a community space. We love working with our neighbors here in Washington, D.C. We love partnering with different organizations here. So this is a way for us to basically take an expert on a topic.
from a local community and I'll use as an example, Ford's Theater, which of course was where they're more than that too, but they are primarily known to be the place President Lincoln, where he was assassinated right at the conclusion of the Civil War here in the United States. And we actually work with them on a Lincoln assassination commemoration event, or sort of memorial event, where we have a speaker from Ford's will come out and give
A brief overview, 20 to 30 minutes, just to people, know, to get them, here's the who, what, where, when, why, how of the Lincoln assassination.
So, you know, there's a lot of different ways we can kind of work with an expert on the topic because there's so much history here, right? And then I, with our education team, will develop a tour based on that topic. So it's kind of combining the presentation with the tour. And then after the sort of the presentation, we go on a 45 to 50 minute thematic walking tour. So in the case of Lincoln assassination, it's really incredible. I'm really proud of this one. We can quite literally recreate the events of the assassination using the graves of people who were there.
We have one of the assassination conspirators. We have one of the doorman Charles Forbes who let unfortunately that John Wilkes Booth into the presidential box that evening. We have four of the I think 11 doctors who attended to President Lincoln. We have the policeman who alleged she carried Lincoln's body to the boarding house, you know where he ended up dying. You know, you get the idea is that we can literally recreate that. So that's sort of what the speaker series is.
Matthew Cudmore (29:12)
Wow.
A.J. Orlikoff (29:29)
Every year we're trying to thematically line up topics that make sense with either current events or commemoration or what's going on, et cetera, et cetera. for example, in May, World Pride's coming here. We're doing a topic related to gay history. So that's just sort of the sense of what we do at the Speaker Series.
Matthew Cudmore (29:51)
I'm really struck by, the whole concept. What do you hear back from folks that are attending these series? What are they saying?
A.J. Orlikoff (29:59)
Well, I think they really appreciate that. sort of what my profession is, right, is that we're making history accessible. We're making it engaging and accessible. Someone could sit there and do the research and read books and figure out all the connections to the Lincoln assassination if they wanted to. But that's a hard ask for people. And public historians, we put that into a place where it is accessible and to get that meaning from.
because everybody should be able to get meaning from the Lincoln assassination. It's a major, major, major event in American history that, believe it or not, really doesn't form the American identity in some way, shape, or form today. So really, it's something that I don't want people missing out on. So we're just trying to get people in touch with the histories already there. And I think people really appreciate that we're putting our resources.
Matthew Cudmore (30:51)
so cool to be working in your position in such a historic place. It's really the history of Washington is buried there, isn't it?
A.J. Orlikoff (31:00)
Absolutely. Again.
Washingtonians have come from all walks of life, all stripes, everything. And this was Washington, D.C., as in Washington City's primary burial ground for quite a long time. There was other cemeteries, of course, and they're amazing. So I'm not trying to say we have exclusivity over that legacy or anything like that. you know, it is really a place, sorry about that. It is really a place where you can really see all of that history and all the different Washingtonians
Matthew Cudmore (31:26)
that's good.
A.J. Orlikoff (31:32)
Washingtonians that have come before to give you know, we're very community based to help inform people what it means being a Washingtonian means today or being an American means today or shoot, you know being a person of the world means today, know, all those things that history can bring and historical insight can bring we have here and we really try to play it up as something that a value
Matthew Cudmore (31:52)
Cemetery, also has been developing links with the military.
A.J. Orlikoff (31:55)
Yeah, absolutely. So that's something else I'm really, really proud of that we started doing. So we've always had a relationship with the Marine Band, the President's Own. They're one of the preeminent marching band units in the entire world, and certainly in the United States military, very preeminent. And so...
John Philip Sousa, the March King, I should have mentioned him. I said we had a famous interred residence, but he's possibly, you know, top five marching band composers of all time, musical savant, Stars and Stripes Forever, Washington Post. If you've heard a piece of American March music, you've heard John Philip Sousa pretty much. And the Marine Band comes to play a concert at his birthday every year, November 6th. So that's a really cool, really cool event. when I got here, I was like, man, we need to do...
more events like this. We need to work with local military. There's a lot of military in Washington, D.C. as everyone can imagine. And so that was something that I wanted to develop with our neighbors and our neighbors here is the District of Columbia National Guard. Very, very important military command. You often only hear of them when something goes wrong.
such as during the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the jets that were scrambled were DC National Guard. During the January 6 insurrection attempt, some of the units that were activated to go respond to that were DC National Guard. And so this is a really, really important local institution here. And thankfully, I worked with their commanding general, John C. Andoni, to develop a new sort of National Guard heritage event here, because it was all about
hey, wow, we have all these amazing men and women defending our capital and defending all of our freedoms here. And wow, we actually have a of their history here. How can we do this? so, and again, I know you all are Canadians, so I'm not trying to bring up a sore topic of the War of 1812, but the War of 1812 had a lot of history from that. And actually there's a very...
infamous battle here in DC called the Battle of Bladensburg. And this was a crushing British victory that allowed the British to come into the city and burn the White House and many of the public buildings here in retaliation for the American burning of York with all respect. So it was a retaliatory strike in all fairness. We did it first.
But, sorry not to get off track, we had many of these men who defended the Capitol and took up arms here and then later went on to victory a few weeks later at Fort McHenry outside of Baltimore that are buried here. And they're really, really proud of their guard service. And this is something where we didn't even know how many guardsmen we had. We didn't have a lot of information. I really had to exercise all my grad school history skills that I learned in school to research this and get a sense of who we had and what this history was. And we were able to develop.
an event and really talk about some of these guards guards men whose names probably hadn't been said in a long long time. And it was particularly rewarding to me to not only, you know, I know all of it. And I know other history nerds will love it, of course, right? Because we're history nerds. But if we can reach the guardsmen who's like, you know, hey, I'm working a job downtown in DC, but then know on the weekends, I'm a defender of our freedoms. I'm a defender of the Capitol. You know, that's someone I want to understand that.
hey, you're not the first one. There's, know, Private Andrew Coyle, his grave's right there. He did it too in 1814. So just like working on that event and laying grease down for that, that was really, really rewarding. And, know, I really value our military connections and our military history and that legacy is something that we really value and we steward. And so to do that in conjunction with local Department of Defense commands is just amazing. So thanks for asking about it.
Matthew Cudmore (35:45)
it's really cool work that you're doing. And you mentioned wreaths as well. You have a program going with Reese across America. understand.
A.J. Orlikoff (35:51)
Absolutely, and I'm really proud to share that actually that was our last December was our first year of doing fully fundraised wreaths as part of the program. We participated before at a smaller level, but this was the first year we were actively fundraising for that. And it was really emotional. We worked with our friends at the District of Columbia and National Guard for that, but also just local people coming out and laying those wreaths in honor of the veterans was...
really rewarding and really amazing to see a program that hadn't been here and a lot of these veterans who had not been recognized to.
Be recognized again. And again, if you're aware of that program, you you say these veterans names when you you lay that wreath. And it's this idea of like you may have heard of it and your listeners may have heard of it of like a second death. And your first death is when your body dies. Right. And that's when a afterlife, you know, withstanding, you know, you're gone, you know, your body, your earthly body is gone. Your mortal coil has been shed. Your body's in the ground. And then your second death is the last time someone ever says your name.
And so that is something where A Across America is such a great program because we want to remember our veterans. We want to know our history. We need to know.
what was sacrifice for what we enjoy today. And if we ever forget that, I think we're headed for not so good territory as society if you forget your history, because how can you learn from it, right? So that's something that is really, really important to me that we're honoring those veterans and that sacrifice and everything that went on with that, which I'm sure many of your listeners and you all are very aware of and you share those values.
Matthew Cudmore (37:27)
⁓ it's
a compelling image to think of those service members placing that wreath down. It must mean so much to them and to you as well to see that kind of community their memory.
A.J. Orlikoff (37:39)
Absolutely, it's really, really rewarding work.
Matthew Cudmore (37:42)
have a really interesting program called soul strolls. can you share a little bit more about that?
A.J. Orlikoff (37:46)
SoulStrolls, I gotta say, when I mentioned earlier that, you know, hey, we have to be a respectful place for people that are buried here, you know, that's something we take really seriously. But if we do that, I think we can be very fun and creative with our programs. And SoulStrolls is definitely, I think, like the best example of that. So what SoulStrolls is, if I had to get it in a nutshell, and maybe like one or two sentences, is SoulStrolls is live outdoor immersive historic theater.
here at Congressional Cemetery. Around the October timeframe, know, spooky time, as some people say, we're on spooky time every year. We actually do have actors playing our interred residents out in the cemetery. And we have guides that lead them, lead attendees with lanterns to these gravesides, and they get a vignette performance of an actor.
playing of J. Edgar Hoover or Belva Lockwood or someone else or some other narrative in the cemetery that we really want to highlight. And basically you kind of go to one person and you have your beer or wine with you, your whiskey, what have you. And then you go to the next person and it takes about an hour. It's sort of this outdoor sort of thematic loop, sort of this macabre journey, spooky journey into the past. The individuals are usually connected by some type of, I shouldn't say usually, they're always connected by some type of.
theme and we're always just doing it in a way that is just going to be a fun way for people to come out and engage with history. And as a public historian, that is something that I immensely value because, you know, when we're engaging with history, not everybody's going to be like, wow, I want to come to the cemetery speaker series and hear someone talk about it. But what a lot of people will do is come to outdoor spooky time after dark in the cemetery in October.
and they think they're coming out to have, know, wow, I'm just gonna get drunk with my friends out in the summer, it's gonna be fun. When really, they're getting that a little bit, know, nothing disorderly, they're getting that a little bit. But what they're also getting is a history lesson. And I love that, it's like history in disguise or sugar with the medicine is an analogy I use often. And so it's really just an amazing way, again, to tell people about.
these amazing stories and legacies that are literally all around us here at the cemetery. And they might have an amazing story, but they're not going to have a big flashing neon sign that says I was amazing. I did an amazing thing. And, I had this amazing human endurance in a time of tragedy or wow, I really did this unique thing that really contributed to the culture in Washington DC or, you know, XYZ it could be anything and anything, right? We're connecting. But the point is,
is that it's not just the famous people. We're getting the people whose stories haven't really been told and we're telling them to an audience receptive to getting that. And you know, we're quite literally bringing people back to life, if just for an evening, so they can tell their story. And that's just really, really rewarding to me, you know, as a historian, but also just as a human being. And it just feels right to me that we're, and then of course we're using that as a fundraiser or a nonprofit, of course.
all those funds go back into supporting the preservation of those very grave zones of the people that are being portrayed. So it's like using their stories to help benefit the cemetery too. So it's a really fun, amazing program. Tickets sell out so fast every year. It's just grown and grown. And we have big, big plans for that this October. So if you're in Washington, D.C. or the surrounding area in October, we'd love to have you for a macabre evening.
Matthew Cudmore (41:23)
AJ, you have a whole calendar of events for 2025 to 2026. What can visitors look forward to this year and a little bit into next?
A.J. Orlikoff (41:32)
Absolutely. So again, our programming is quite innovative in this space, even for historic cemeteries, because there's quite a lot of innovative programming out there with a lot of our sibling institutions, both in the area and throughout the United States and Canada. But we're even, from what I've seen, particularly unique in this respect. So we're always doing something to really engage folks in the community and throughout.
And what unites all those things? Well, we of course offer things that people love to do. And we're a reflection of our community as much as we are sort of the inverse, right? And so our programs reflect what people want. So just this past weekend, we had a comedy show and a concert. So we offer those regularly in our historic spaces. Our chapel has amazing acoustics. It's a really cool place to see a concert.
We have movie night. We have Cinematary that Moseliams and Monsters is the theme this year by the way. We show outdoor movies in the cemetery. We have again those live outdoor immersive theater events. Soul's Trolls is our big big one. We have dosage tours and speakers theories throughout the entire year. And of course we have the cherry blossoms that are out there blooming right now and we're always the destination for folks wanting to come see you know get that urban oasis feel with the cherry blossoms.
⁓ but you know, quite frankly, you know, although I'm so happy here to champion all of our amazing successes and all of the hard work that our staff does from site sales and programming and environmental preservation standpoints, you know, I'd be remiss as a nonprofit executive director if I didn't say that, you know, we're really counting on people's help. We are a nonprofit. We're a 501 C3 organization, and we are running out of space for sites.
And that is why we are so invested in the programming that we are because we have to. We have to transition revenue models and we have to transition to a place that relies on, you know, institutional giving and other ways to support the cemetery. Because if we don't do that in 10 or 20, 30 years, we're still not sure we're going to run out of space and we're not going to have site sale revenue. And there's many, many, many historic cemeteries. And I know because I've talked to these folks.
that are facing the same challenges. So we are kind of being forced to do it, whereas others are kind of like, do we do this with the vibe? It's kind of like the cultural vibes are shifting towards death. It's like, well, we don't really have a choice. And so we are, we do rely on many of the gravestones we have here are toppled from periods of neglect and the cemetery's past. No one that's in the building now was responsible for that, but it's still our responsibility to correct.
Matthew Cudmore (44:06)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Orlikoff (44:19)
We do fundraising campaigns around that work. It's very, very expensive work to preserve and write graves that have fallen. I learned that when I started working here. I had no clue how much that actually costs. So really, I would just encourage listeners, and I hope nobody minds me being a little more direct with this, is that we need your help. And to do all these things, we need your buy-in, both literally and figuratively, to what we're doing here. And so...
I would just encourage everybody just to check us out and just to get added to our newsletter or our mailing list or something like that. And then if you're ever in DC, come check out our programs and consider supporting us. We really, really are so proud of the work that we're doing. We're proud to be a lively cemetery. We're proud to be a place that is an urban oasis. And to do those things, we do need help. So again, hope I'm not being too forward to anybody or anything like that, but.
You know, it is something that, you know, that I felt the need to say. It's true.
Matthew Cudmore (45:16)
Yeah, no,
absolutely. It's so important the work that you're doing in such an important place on this planet. We fully support your call for action, really. And it's really fascinating to see how you are kind of ducking and diving with the punches there when it comes to your challenges, because these are real challenges. And the Congressional Cemetery is a place that's absolutely
A.J. Orlikoff (45:30)
Thank you.
Matthew Cudmore (45:46)
worth every attention and effort.
So to all our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and checking out the show. We'll include show notes for you on ways that you can support the Congressional Cemetery. AJ, it was an absolute pleasure sharing some space with you, learning about the Congressional Cemetery, all the innovation that you're doing. You're truly leading the charge in ways. mean, I'm so, I can't wait to get to DC. It'll probably be in October. The Soul Stroll sounds absolutely amazing. You're gonna have to add like in...
extra encore performances, I think, in the other months, come up with something else innovative. But so, so enjoyed having you on the show today and hearing a little bit about the cemetery, who's buried there and what's keeping you busy. It was an absolute pleasure, AJ.
A.J. Orlikoff (46:31)
And likewise, you know, I'm so appreciative for the opportunity to come on and I'm, honestly, you know, thank you all so much for the work that you all are doing in this space, right? It's, it's really important that, you know, we do this together and you know, cemeteries, different cemeteries, know, they all need varying levels of support.
We're really financially healthy, although we do need funds of course, but I'll tell you what, I know that the local cemetery down your street where you live, they need help too. Cemeteries can always, always use help from the community. So I'm really grateful for you spreading awareness for that. And like I said, if you're ever in DC and it's Soul's Trolls time, we'll get you a VIP ticket.
Matthew Cudmore (47:12)
Okay, I'll hold to that.