GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Steven Spielberg asked sixteen newly minted Americans to remember equality as the Abraham Lincoln biopic director marked the 149th anniversary of the president’s famous “Gettysburg Address.”

Spielberg addressed citizens from 11 countries who took the oath of allegiance to become U.S. citizens Monday at the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg.

After spending seven years working his new movie “Lincoln,” Spielberg says the 16th president came to feel like one of his oldest and dearest friends. He says Lincoln would want us to realize equality is a “democratic essential.”

Gettysburg is where the U.S. military was able to stop an invasion of the North by Confederate troops under Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln gave the three-minute speech, which famously begins with the phrase, “four score and seven years ago,” at the dedication of the cemetery four months after the battle.