Mrs. Bush's Remarks at the Preserve America Summit

U.S. Customs House
New Orleans, Louisiana

9:22 A.M. CDT

MRS. BUSH: Thank you, John, thank you for your nice remarks and the great work you're doing as Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Governor Landrieu, thank you very much for joining us today in this absolutely magnificent Customs House building. There's no better place for this meeting than here in New Orleans. Lynn Scarlett, the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, thank you very much for joining us, as well.

And here on the front row are some of our federal partners, our cultural partners, I should say -- the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia; Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole; the Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ann-Imelda Radice; Adair Margo, the Chair of the President's Council on Arts and Humanities; and Dick Moe, Chairman of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Thanks to each and every one of you for what you do every day to protect our special culture and soul of the United States. (Applause.)

Welcome, everyone, to the Preserve America Summit. Today we gather to mark 40 years of national historic preservation.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act on October 15, 1966, he launched the first coordinated federal effort to safeguard our country's heritage. By creating institutions like the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the State Historic Preservation Offices, and the National Register of Historic Places, the National Historic Preservation Act has saved priceless artifacts of American history, and led to four terrific decades of preservation work throughout the United States.

The National Historic Preservation Act originated, as John told us, as a response to rapid urban development and highway construction that threatened historic neighborhoods across America during the 1960s. Today, we still face some of these challenges, but we also face a new set of preservation challenges. Modern technologies must be adapted to help safeguard our national icons. The historical narrative we preserve must include the contributions of many cultures, and tell the stories of all Americans. And as we protect our country's history for our children and grandchildren to enjoy, we also must educate American children so that they'll continue our work when we're gone.

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