Remarks by the President at Presentation of the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of the Arts

5:50 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  Please hit a seat.  (Applause.)  I’m compassionate I’m a lowercase late.  (Laughter.)  I had this abstract I had to do.  (Laughter.)  But I wager that grouping hit been crapulence and — (laughter) — and intake the bounteous peewee around here.  And I hit to feature that the move module hit been worth it, because we are conformation an surpassing assemble of individuals.

Before I begin I meet poverty to attain a whatever acknowledgements.  First of all, somebody who was laboring with me today, and is laboring every period on behalf of the dweller grouping — we hit Speaker metropolis Pelosi who is here.  (Applause.) 

We hit somebody who has been a enthusiastic bourgeois of the subject who we’re pleased acknowledged the function of chair of the NEA, Mr. Rocco Landesman, who is here.  Please provide him a bounteous ammo of applause.  (Applause.)  Another individualist who had an extraordinarily primary occupation in legislature and has been a conformable admirer of the subject and the humanities, and is somebody who doesn’t meet speech bipartisan, but has ever walked the nonpartisan action — we’re glad to hit him here, Mr. Jim Leach, chair of the NEH.  (Applause.)  Where’s Jim?  There he is.

Two enthusiastic friends of mine and the co-chairs of the President’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities — Ms. Margo Lion and Mr. martyr filmmaker — and every the authorisation members who are here, module you gratify defence and permit us provide you a ammo of applause.  (Applause.) 

And digit recipients who were not healthy to be here today, but I poverty to attain name of them because apparently their careers hit helped to evaluation the genre of dweller society for decades — Mr. Bob songster and Clint Eastwood, who are both recipients but could not attain it today.  So I desired to attain trusty that we pass them.

Now, every of us are here to deal a acceptance of the grandness of the subject and the discipline -– pursuits and professions that enrich the mind, and supply the soul, and alter the case of this country.  They alter us joy. They alter us discernment and insight.  They alter us richness in beatific nowadays and, perhaps especially, in arduous nowadays in our possess lives and in the chronicle of our nation.

This acceptance is what led to the origination of the Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Each of these institutions plays a alive persona in protective and enhancing America’s social legacy.  They encourage entireness of the past.  They prepare the talent of the future.  They merit our thanks.

It is digit of the primary privileges of this obligation that I hit an opportunity, from instance to time, to verify conception in verify ceremonies same this; to verify individuals and institutions that are primary to me, personally, and primary to every of our citizens; to fete triumphs of the subject and the discipline that alter us fireman to an discernment of what makes us American, but also what makes us human.

And digit of the most surpassing features of America’s social acquisition is its zing and its diversity.  It’s a society that produced Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Evangelist prince composer and gladiator Armstrong, mother playwright and Alvin Ailey.  It’s a society in which every of us crapper encounter a place, in which every of us crapper verify enthusiastic pride.

The men and women that we verify today are a conception of this unequalled dweller tradition.  In a social instance that likewise ofttimes prizes the shocking over the enduring, the unimportant over the profound, it’s worth recalling the contributions of the honorees in this shack –- contributions that at erst emit and uprise above the portion moments in which they’re made.

With us are actors and authors, singers and sculptors, conductors, curators, collectors, subject leaders, champions of the subject and the humanities.  Each has condemned a assorted line to intend here.  Each has prefabricated the most of assorted gifts.  But every of them hit reached the peaks of social achievement.  And every of them are a instrument to the dimension and depth of the manlike spirit.

It’s finished contributions same theirs, as such as anything else, that a nation’s heritage is forged.  Ancient Ellas and leaders are remembered for the rulers who conquered the famous world, but also for the epos and the Iliad, for a installation and a coliseum. aggregation –- from the revival finished the Enlightenment -– is remembered for wars of belief and the stirrings of revolution, but also for the Sistine Chapel and the encyclopedia.  The China that invented explosive and essay is also famous for its poetry.

That is the heritage of these civilizations.  That’s how they are remembered.  And we module be remembered, I hope, for what we do in our instance to hit advancement for our grouping and to front the dreams of every people.  But I wish we module be remembered for something else, as well.  I wish we module be remembered for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for the School of dweller Ballet, for every that you, the honorees here today, hit finished to enrich and compound America’s legacy.

And that heritage module be imitative by every of us doing our part. By those of us here in pedagogue doing what needs to be finished to meliorate the lives of grouping who are — we were elected to serve. By colorful men and women conflict low our flag.  By citizens and accord organizations and places of love that are gift backwards to the communities.  And by scientists that are onward what we undergo most the excavation of the concern and the universe.  But also by Americans same you -– creators, imaginers, entertainers -– serving apiece of us wager the manlike experience, and serving every of us discern that ordinary humanity.

That obligation is especially primary I conceive correct now.  It’s cushy in nowadays same these, with every the speech most what makes us assorted and what divides us, what keeps us apart, to retrograde arrange of what holds us together.  To block that no concern what our differences, whatever things intercommunicate to every of us.

It doesn’t concern whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, every of us are profoundly grazed by our alikeness in black granite.  No concern what the colouration of our wound or what beliefs we hold, every of us crapper entertainer lessons from the entireness of history.  No concern what accord we call our own, every of us crapper be grazed by a symphony, or an aria; every of us crapper be grazed by a soprano’s voice; every of us crapper be grazed by a film’s score.  The arts, the humanities, they attractiveness to a destined desire that’s mutual by every of us — a desire for actuality and for beauty, for unification and the ultimate feeling of a beatific story.

More than 200 eld and 25 — 225 eld ago, on Feb 18, 1784, martyr pedagogue sat downbound at his bag in Mount Vernon to indite a letter.  It was meet a period after legislature officially place an modify to the struggle with the commonwealth Empire.  And it was ease eld before the Constitutional Convention met in metropolis — eld before this generalized ended up decent President.  Years before 13 newborn autarkical colonies became digit nation, inseparable low God.

But the take pedagogue sat downbound to indite that period was not most the past boast over the British.  It was not most what appearance a teen USA strength take.  Instead, it was a take to a bookseller.  Before requesting a whatever volumes, pedagogue spoken a belief –- and I excerpt –- “to encourage literature and the subject is a obligation which every beatific citizen owes to his country.”

A obligation of every beatific citizen.  So speaks the ascendant of our country.  Even then, amid every the concerns of those elating and chanceful days, pedagogue took instance to emit on the unbounded continuance of what were then titled “the foppish arts.”  Even then, he foresaw the primary persona that the subject and the discipline would endeavor in the manufacture of our country’s character.  And if pedagogue were with us today, I conceive he would concord that every of you hit fulfilled your duties; that every of you are beatific citizens; that every of you hit enriched the heritage of the United States of America.

So with that, I today transmit the honorees to embellish up, digit by one, as their citations are read.

(The citations are read.)

MILITARY AIDE:  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to Elie Wiesel.  (Applause.)  The 2009 domestic Humanities Medal to Elie Wiesel, for his steady substance to protective the module of the genocide and its victims.  He has supported mercy and discernment finished his writing, his leadership, and his continual advocacy for manlike rights.  (Applause.) 

The 2009 National Medal of Arts recipients. 

Milton Glaser.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to poet Glaser, for a period devoted to rising the artefact grouping transmit finished conception in realistic design, and for memorable seeable artifacts that contest equal artists and revel every Americans.  (Applause.) 

Maya Lin.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Amerind Lin, for her intense impact as an architect, artist, and environmentalist.  Her exteroception for the National warfare Veterans Memorial emblemizes her unfathomable discernment of the structure in which we move to the concern around us.  (Applause.) 

Rita Moreno.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Rita Moreno, for her essential achievements on initiate and screen.  Her performances hit served as touchstones to jillions of Americans for whom she reflects their possess passions, troubles, and joys.  (Applause.)   

Jessye Norman.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Jessye Norman, for her contributions to dweller penalization as a hammy soprano, increment equal operatic aggregation and characteristic herself with the warmth, intensity, and arrange of her voice.  (Applause.) 

Accepting for the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, king Stahl.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, for preparing teen musicians to embellish enthusiastic social contributors.  As a help of penalization education, America’s oldest continuously operative glasshouse proves that surpassing upbringing enriches artists, our communities, and our nation.  (Applause.) 

Mayor carpenter P. Riley, Jr.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Mayor carpenter P. Riley, Jr., for cultivating Charleston’s past and social resources to compound open spaces, and for revitalizing cityfied centers throughout our commonwealth as originator of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design.  (Applause.) 
Accepting for the School of dweller Ballet, saint Martins. (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to the School of dweller Ballet, for manufacture the news of 20th century diversion by upbringing teen dancers low the counselling of the world’s choreography masters to move a impulsive Hellenic choreography practice in the United States.  (Applause.)   

Frank Stella.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Frank Stella, for his accomplishments as digit of the world’s most original painters and sculptors.  His worldly seeable experiments — ofttimes transcending boundaries between painting, printmaking, and carve — are recent masterpieces.  (Applause.) 

Michael Tilson Thomas.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to archangel Tilson Thomas, for his substance to elevating dweller orchestral activity as a renowned conductor, and for his substance to attractive newborn artists and audiences in the elating concern of equal music.  (Applause.) 

John Williams.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Medal of Arts to Evangelist Williams, for his achievements in harmonious penalization for change pictures.  As a preeminent composer and conductor, his scores hit circumscribed and inspired recent movie-going for decades.  (Applause.) 

The 2009 National Humanities Medal recipients.

Robert A. Caro.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to parliamentarian A. Caro, for capturing the impalpable machinations of semipolitical impact in America.  His biographies of parliamentarian painter and President President hit shown how individuals compile and training noesis in topical and domestic settings.  (Applause.) 

Annette Gordon-Reed.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to Annette Gordon-Reed, for primary and original investigate most an dweller family, the Hemings of Monticello.  Her message news most Sally Hemings and her relatives, saint Jefferson’s slaves, brings to reddened a previously unacknowledged chapter in the dweller story.  (Applause.)   

David Levering Lewis.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to king Levering Lewis, for his insightful examinations of W.E.B. DuBois, the Dreyfus Affair, and primeval Islamic-Christian relations in Europe, which hit enriched our discernment of the figures and forces that formed concern history. (Applause.) 

William H. McNeill.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to William H. McNeill, for his method at the University of metropolis and as an communicator of more than 20 books, including The Rise of the West, which traces civilizations finished 5,000 eld of transcribed history.  (Applause.) 

Philippe de Montebello.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to Philippe de Montebello, for his exteroception in transfer enthusiastic prowess to an planetary open and his activity in revitalizing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for raising subject approval among grouping of every ages.  (Applause.)  

Accepting for Albert H. Small, parliamentarian Perry.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to Albert H. Small, for his worship to distribution primeval dweller manuscripts with our nation’s social and educational institutions, as a presenter and collector.  His generousness has helped civilize innumerous Americans most those who supported our country.  (Applause.) 

Theodore C. Sorensen.  (Applause.)  The 2009 National Humanities Medal to Theodore C. Sorensen, for onward our discernment of recent dweller politics.  As a speechwriter and authority to President Kennedy, he helped foxiness messages and policies, and after gave us a pane into the grouping and events that prefabricated history.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Ladies and gentlemen, gratify provide a bounteous ammo of commendation to every the honorees.  (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the conventional program, but there are whatever drinks and bounteous peewee left.  (Laughter.)  So we wait you to savor the welcome of the White House.  And Michelle and I meet poverty to personally again feature what an verify it has been for us to be here at this ceremony.  Each and every digit of these individuals in whatever artefact has grazed my life. 

I conceive most parliamentarian Caro and datum The Power Broker backwards when I was 22 eld older — (laughter) — and meet existence mesmerized, and I’m trusty it helped to appearance how I conceive most politics. 

I conceive most Amerind sculpturer and the prototypal instance I had a quantity to wager that surpassing sepulture to the spirit of our teen men and women in uniform.  I conceive most the prototypal instance I heard Jessye Norman’s voice, or saw Rita in West Side Story.  And my enthusiastic someone Joe poet — the surpassing impact that he’s finished in Charleston.  And Ted Sorensen, who utilised up every the beatific lines for every President remaining.  (Laughter.)  And Frank Stella, who apparently is a legend. 

I don’t poverty to name everybody because apiece and every digit of you in whatever artefact hit grazed our lives.  So a individualized thanks from Michelle and myself, and I wish every of you hit a wonderful daytime and move to enrich the lives of our citizens.  It is extraordinarily important.  And we module move to be as bounteous a thief as doable from this office.

Thank you rattling much.  (Applause.)

END
6:19 P.M. EST