presidential libraries

Every presidential museum we visit informs and impresses me. Recently we visited both President George Bush libraries in Texas. Both libraries reside on college campuses. Both presidents and their wives worked to improve education and reading levels. A nation that reads more, knows more. Or as George Bush (43rd president) said, “Reading is a new civil right. Because if you can’t read, you cannot possibly be educated and if you’re not educated, you can’t succeed.” George (43) introduced the No Child Left Behind Act. Politicians on both sides of the aisle voted for it. He reiterated his father and mother’s emphasis on education. The President George H.W. Bush’s (41st president) museum includes a bright, cheerful room with a library of children’s books.In 41’s museum, one area dealt with the death of their three year-old daughter Robin to leukemia. After that loss Bush and his wife Barbara established a foundation that has raised millions for cancer research before and after his presidency. The Bush presidents follow in the path of another Texan president, Lyndon Johnson, by having their library and museum on a college campus. As a 19 year-old teacher in 1928, Johnson taught in a small school. He saw childre come to school hungry every day. That fact impacted him forever. When we visited his library a few years ago, we reviewed his legislation for the Great Society which aimed to end poverty and racial discrimination. I poignantly remember that he said his one regret was that he would be remembered more for the Vietnam War, than the Great Society programs. Presidents do not get to dictate their museum’s displays. Richard Nixon would have preferred to exclude the Watergate story and his resignation. It is included, as is Bill Clinton’s moral choices and the dress that contributed to his impeachment. The museums track the historical events during each presidency. For Bush 41 that meant the Gulf Wars and the decline of the Cold War including removing the Berlin Wall. Standing in front of the display of the Wall’s destruction, my husband quietly observed, “They tore down the wall. We are building one.” Of course Bush 43’s museum practically begins with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In a picture he quietly reads books to a class as an aide bends over him and whispers news of the first attack. From the order of the classroom his pictorial history goes to the Twin Towers’s rubble and him speech to first responders and the nation. Looking back he said, “I never wanted to be a war time president.” Circumstances changed his course. Museums include temporary exhibits. The Bush 43 temporary exhibit features a discussion about the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. I photographed several panels addressing the question “Who has the right to be an American citizen?” The 14th amendment defines a citizen as any person born or naturalized in the United States. That overturned the 1857 Supreme Court ruling that black people were not eligible for citizenship. I found it interesting that Native Americans had to go to court to be recognized as citizens. They have always lived in this country. The final post left me reflecting on the second and third generation Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps during WWII. It took until 1976 before President Ford rescinded the 1942 executive order that incarcerated 110,000 legitimate citizens. In 1988 President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act that provided reparations for survivors more than 40 years after the camps closed. I find the museums interesting and thought provoking. The 13 presidential libraries we have visited proved worth our time. I always leave with a broadened perspective of each president.