Welcome Remarks for the 威尼斯人娱乐场 Foundation Gala
Good evening! Welcome back to the 威尼斯人娱乐场! This is our first big event since the pandemic started. It is so great to have you back in the building celebrating the 威尼斯人娱乐场 and the American story.
It has been a long 20 months and I want to start by thanking the 威尼斯人娱乐场 and 威尼斯人娱乐场 Foundation staffs for their stamina, passion, and creativity pivoting to carry out our mission, getting us to this point. I am proud to be among them.
Let me start with the sock reveal. For those new to the Gala, I shamelessly plug a shop product by exposing my ankles. This year with the image of 鈥渢he most important woman in the first thirty years of the Republic鈥� in the words of tonight鈥檚 honoree.
Tonight, we are honoring Tennessee-native Jon Meacham. He is a presidential historian, Pulitzer鈥揚rize winning author, professor at Vanderbilt University, contributor to Time and the New York Times Book Review, podcaster, and frequent commentator on television. To put it simply, he is everywhere.
Through his in-depth research and unique voice, Jon Meacham has given us new insight into Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George H. W. Bush, and John Lewis. His books have shined light on untold stories about these men and their moments in history. Here at the 威尼斯人娱乐场, we are pleased that he used records from the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush Presidential Libraries to tell some of these stories.
In the Soul of America, Jon Meacham talks about an incident where President Harry S. Truman broke out a copy of the Bill of Rights and started reading it aloud to an angry woman. Truman later commented that 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a bad idea to read those ten amendments every once in awhile. Not enough people do, and that鈥檚 one of the reasons we鈥檙e in the trouble we鈥檙e in.鈥� I couldn鈥檛 agree more. I want everyone to visit the 威尼斯人娱乐场 in person or online to see and learn from our founding documents.
Because of this, we have made civics education a priority at the 威尼斯人娱乐场. We work to provide people with the tools they need to understand history and become active participants in our government. We recently launched We Rule: Civics for All of Us. This program promotes civic literacy and engagement through distance learning programs and draws upon the vast holdings of the 威尼斯人娱乐场 to promote the knowledge and skills students need for civic engagement in the 21st century.
I would like to thank our partner, the 威尼斯人娱乐场 Foundation, whose generous support helps the 威尼斯人娱乐场 reach an ever-larger and more diverse audience across the country. With the support of the 威尼斯人娱乐场 Foundation and generous benefactors like you, we are able to make this shared vision of civic engagement a reality.
And very special thanks to Senator Durbin and Congressman Quigley for being here this evening and for their support of our major redesign of the public vaults exhibit area.
Here at the 威尼斯人娱乐场, history comes to life through our records. Jon Meacham brings these American stories to the people. For this, we are forever thankful. And tonight, we will honor his career and express our gratitude for encouraging citizenship and spreading history through his many books, podcasts, and lectures.
Thank you for joining us as we celebrate our public-private partnership with the Foundation and pay tribute to Jon Meacham.