Diners at restaurant where Lincoln assassination was planned think US is as divided now as the Civil War

Mary Surratt, the building’s owner, would become the first woman executed by the US federal government

In 1865, five members of the conspirators planned to assassinate Abraham Lincoln at this DC Chinese restaurant (Michelle Del Rey)

Geri Roth, a substitute teacher from North Carolina, was unaware she’d been chowing down on egg rolls in the same place conspirators planned Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865.

“I feel like I should have known that,” said Roth, adding she makes it a point to visit Wok and Roll, an Asian eatery with an adjoining karaoke bar in the heart of Washington DC’s Chinatown, every time she’s in the city visiting her daughter.

In light of two recent assassination attempts against former president Donald Trump ahead of the upcoming election, The Independent headed down to the site where Lincoln’s assassination was plotted to ask diners whether they think the US remains as divided as it was during the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln, pictured here making his Gettysburg Address, was the first presidential assassination (1863 AP)

“I think so,” Roth said after emerging from the restaurant on an autumn afternoon, stating the recent attempts on Trump’s life are indicative of that division.

“The past always comes to the forefront,” Roth, 63, said. “Everything’s just so divided. And with the election coming up, I think things are getting worse until they get better.”

Lincoln was the first US president to be assassinated. John Wilkes Booth shot him in the back of the head at Ford’s Theater five days after Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered, the event adding to the chaos of an already fragile state. While many grieved Lincoln’s death, others celebrated.

Pedestrians frequently walk past the building without realizing its significance (Michelle Del Rey)

Since then, three other US presidents — James Garfield, William McKinley and John F Kennedy — have been murdered in office. Trump survived an assassination attempt earlier this year while speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania when a gunman shot the former president in the ear.

In September, the Secret Service shot at a man hiding in the brush along the fence line of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach with a rifle aimed at Trump. He was later charged with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, making it the second alleged attempt on Trump’s life within weeks.

A plaque outside the building commemorates its history. The plaque was paid for by a local community group (Michelle Del Rey)

Ian Thal, a DC-based playwright and theater critic who researches political violence in his free time, said he is concerned about such violence becoming an acceptable way of addressing disputes with the electoral system.

Speaking almost a week out from the election after enjoying a meal of General Tso’s Bean Curd and Hot and Sour Soup at Wok and Roll, he said he’s “honestly fearful of where things are going.”

Thal was oblivious to the historical nature of his dinner location — but had taken note of how complicated this election could be, partially amid widespread polarization.

The US remains separated, but in a manner different from the Civil War era, Thal said. “It’s not like the North versus South thing. There are a number of different groups.”

A 2024 Ipsos survey found that 81 per cent of Americans think the US is more divided than united.

The interior of the Wok and Roll restaurant that used to be the Mary Surratt boardinghouse (Michelle Del Rey)

Matthew Champagne, the manager of education at the Surratt House Museum in Clinton, Maryland, said the country continues to deal with the fallout of what was plotted at that DC restaurant, which back in 1865 was the site of a boarding house owned by Mary Surratt, the first women to be executed by the US federal government for her ties to the assassination.

She and her son, John Surratt Jr, hosted members of the conspiracy in the townhome. The group first planned to abduct Lincoln, but the initial plot failed. Booth started planning the assassination after watching the president give a speech at the White House publicly supporting voting rights for Black men two days after Lee’s surrender.

Three days later, he shot Lincoln in the back of the head at Ford’s Theater, a half-mile walk from the restaurant. Hours after the murder, detectives combed through the boardinghouse. They returned in two days to arrest Mary Surratt and another member of the conspiracy.

A letter from the Surratt Society hangs in the restaurant’s entryway (Michelle Del Rey)

Despite working for a museum that is the former Maryland home of the Surratt family, Champagne doesn’t think the DC site should be turned into a museum preserving the stories of the assassins, whom he called “white supremacist domestic terrorists.”

“This history is very important to preserve and to share, but to do so in a proper context where the conspirators are the antagonists in this story, not the protagonists,” he said.

Otherwise, these locations can become spaces to sympathize with their ideologies.

“If you were going to turn a historic site into anything other than a museum, please let it be a Chinese food restaurant slash karaoke bar,” Champagne said.