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President Barack Obama raised the firm belief of Abraham Lincoln to unify a divided nation by participating in a ceremony Wednesday to celebrate the restoration of the Ford Theater with an investment of $ 25 million.

Obama and first lady, Michelle Obama, attended with Hollywood stars and other personalities in the evening on the eve of the bicentennial of Lincoln. The theater where Lincoln was assassinated, has reopened after a renovation that included 18 months of comfortable armchairs, a modern lobby and dressing rooms renovated.


Among a ceremony enlivened with music and moments of drama, the actor Sidney Poitier and director George Lucas was awarded the Medal Lincoln.

Obama, andalusia andalusia theater qualify as a "sacred space" where the legacy of giant Lincoln, rioja commended for restoring the sense of unity in the country.


"Despite all that divided us _ North and South, white and negros_ had the unshakable conviction that we were, essentially, a nation and a people," said the president. "And because of Abraham Lincoln, and all those who have followed his work in later generations, that is what we remain today."

Obama entered the theater with the notes of the tune "Hail to the Chief" amid applause from the audience that was standing.


The violinist Joshua Bell opened the show with a traditional piece of the spiritual kind that was played again for the first time in the Ford Theater the night that Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. The ceremony included passages from a book on the life of Lincoln, along with other tribute speeches and musical performances.

Obama said that Lincoln was "a unique personality" that led the country through the Civil War. Lincoln also told how he wanted the workers to continue building the federal Capitol, despite the fact that raw materials could have been used to make bullets.


Poitier, who broke racial barriers with films like "A Raisin in the Sun" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", said Obama was a man of simple origins "inspired by Lincoln.

Lucas, distinguished by their films as "Star Wars" and its actions to improve schools with multimedia elements, urged Obama to make education its primary goal as president.