On June 15, 1981, Maya Lin learned she had won the national design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She was 21 years old, a Yale undergraduate, and one of 1,421 people who had submitted entries.

The backlash began almost immediately.

Veterans' groups protested that the memorial was not patriotic enough. Critics objected to its simplicity. Ross Perot, who had funded the competition, publicly questioned whether a young Asian-American woman could understand the sacrifice being memorialized. One veteran called it "a black gash of shame."

Some demanded a figurative bronze monument replace or supplement Lin's design. After political pressure, a representational statue was added nearby as a compromise — but Lin's wall was built as she designed it.

The memorial opened in 1982. Within a year, it had become one of the most visited sites in Washington. Visitors run their fingers along the names. They leave photographs, letters, medals, flowers. The wall reflects their faces back at them.

Lin went on to design the Civil Rights Memorial, the Women's Table at Yale, and dozens of other works. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

The wall was right all along. The people who told her she was wrong have been forgotten. The wall remembers 58,000 names.