Remarks at the Truman Symposium

Welcome to the National Archives!

We are thrilled to be a part of this important celebration, commemorating the 75th anniversary of President Truman's executive orders desegregating the armed forces and federal workforce.

Let me tell you a little about the National Archives and Records Administration, known to many as NARA. Our mission is to preserve and protect the nation’s records and make them accessible so all Americans can understand history. By doing this, we enable citizens to hold our government accountable and engage in our democracy as informed participants.

To give you an idea of our breadth, the holdings of the National Archives include 13 ½ billion pages of textual records, tens of millions of maps, charts, drawings, photographs, and films. Close to 300 million of those records are in digital format so you can access them online in our catalog at Archives.gov anytime.

Now, as some of you may know, I’m a scholar of the presidency and executive power. Because of that background, I strongly believe that the comprehensive study of our shared American history brings us together and strengthens our democratic ideals.  

It’s fitting that we are talking about Harry Truman today here at the National Archives, because President Truman was a great student of history. When he was about ten years old, his mother gave him a blackboard, and on the backside of the blackboard, there were short biographies of all the presidents up until that time. Truman later reflected that reading those short sketches of presidents ignited his love for learning about the history of our country.

That’s really an amazing story to me. Harry Truman didn’t know it at the time, but his blackboard was a very early version of our nation’s presidential library system.

While our collection of federal records makes the National Archives and Records Administration the largest archive in the world, many citizens learn about American history through our presidential libraries. These fifteen institutions, situated across the United States, give everyone the chance to see, hear, and learn about various historical eras of our nation’s past. 

And this is no surprise given my background, but I’m a big fan. I’ve got my presidential library passport right here, and you should get one too. In less than two weeks, I’ll have another stamp on my passport when I visit the Harry Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. 

I am pleased we are partnering this evening with the Truman Library Institute – one of our great nonprofit foundations which support NARA’s presidential libraries. I want to extend a special welcome to the foundation staff, board members and donors, who recently invested $30 million in the renovation of the Truman Library.

Our ability to share this important history with the American public could not happen without the dedication and generosity of foundations like this one, so thank you.

I also want to give a special welcome to the history and social studies teachers from the Kansas City region who have come to Washington for this symposium. As the Archivist of the United States, I welcome every opportunity to engage with teachers to foster civic education and awareness of our democratic principles. 

Thank you again for visiting us this evening. I’ll leave you with a famous Harry Truman quote, which I like to repeat to myself from time to time: “Do your best, history will do the rest.”

Have a terrific evening and enjoy your National Archives.