Prepared Statement of

Ken Burns

Committee on Education and Labor

Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities

U.S. House of Representatives

May 8, 2008

Madame Chairwoman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee:

It is an honor for me to appear before you today, and I am grateful that
you have given me this opportunity to express my thoughts on the
programs of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Let me begin by saying that I am a
passionate supporter of the Endowments and their unique role in
fostering creativity and scholarship and the transmission of the best of
our diverse culture to future generations.

Few institutions provide such a direct, grassroots way for our citizens
to participate in the shared glories of their common past, in the power
of the priceless ideals that have animated our remarkable republic and
our national life for more than two hundred years, and in the
inspirational life of the mind and the heart that an engagement with the
arts and humanities always provides.

For all of my life, I have been a student of our nation's fascinating
history and rich cultural legacy. I have been foremost a filmmaker, but
I also think of myself as an amateur historian---"amateur" in the
classic sense. That is, one who engages in the study of a subject out of
a deep and abiding love.

And, for more than 30 years, I have been producing historical
documentary films that shed light on facets of that subject I love so
dearly, American history and culture. These films range from the
construction of Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty to the
turbulent life of the demagogue Huey Long; from the serene simplicity of
Shaker architecture to the jubilation and spontaneity of jazz; from the
sublime pleasures and unexpected lessons of our national pastime,
baseball, to the terrible watershed experiences of the Civil War and
World War II. Over this time, I have been able to realize my hope of
sharing what I have found so compelling and enduring about our epic
American story.

Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work closely with both
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for
the Arts. Nearly all of my films have been produced with the support and
encouragement of the National Endowment for the Humanities, either at
the state or national level. On other occasions, I have enjoyed support
from the National Endowment for the Arts. I first received an NEH grant
in 1979, as I embarked on my first project, a film about the
construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The application process was not
unlike the building of that bridge---a complex, demanding, and
time-consuming process. But, at this very early stage of my career, the
experience of competing successfully for an NEH grant helped me set high
standards of excellence... in filmmaking, writing, scholarship, and even
budgeting.

Over the years, I would apply many times to the NEH for support on a
variety of projects. Working with NEH staff and humanities scholars
ensured that my projects stayed true to rigorous intellectual standards
and reached a broad, receptive audience of Americans. This interaction
has been a powerful influence on my work, even when my applications have
not been successful. On the few occasions in my professional life when I
did not enjoy Endowment support, I tried---with decidedly mixed
results---to duplicate the arduous but honorable discipline the NEH
imposes on every project that comes its way, simply because I thought it
would make my films better.

Without a doubt, my work would not have been possible without the
Endowments. My series on the Civil War, for instance, could not have
been made without early and substantial support from the NEH. The NEH
provided one of the project's largest grants, thereby attracting a host
of other funders. Many applicants find that grants from NEH or NEA are a
kind of "seal of approval\" that signify excellence. Especially early in
my career, this coveted imprimatur helped me to convince private
foundations, corporations, and other public funders that my films were
worthy of their support. NEH involvement helped me in every aspect of
the production, and, through unrelated grants to other institutions,
they helped restore the archival photographs we would use to tell our
histories. Much of the seminal research our scholars provided also came
from NEH-supported projects. And NEH's interest in our progress ensured
at critical junctures that we did not stray into myth or hagiography. I
am extremely grateful for all those things.

In a filmed interview several years ago, the writer and essayist Gerald
Early told us that \"when they study our civilization two thousand years
from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known
for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music. They\'re the three most
beautiful things Americans have ever created.\" His wonderful,
smile-inducing comment made me realize that my professional life in a
way has been a series of projects that have tried to honor that
statement of his. We grappled with many Constitutional issues in our
Civil War series (the Constitution\'s greatest test) and in many other
films, including, I might add, a history of this great institution, the
Congress; explored our national pastime and its exquisite lessons in our
series on baseball; and more recently we struggled to understand the
utterly American art form of jazz.

In producing all these films we were reminded daily that the true genius
of America is improvisation, our unique experiment a profound
intersection of freedom and creativity, for better and for worse, in
nearly every gesture and breath. We discovered that nowhere is this more
apparent, of course, than in jazz -- the subject of a 2001 documentary
series we made with support from both the NEA and the NEH. To me jazz is
an enduring and indelible expression of cultural diversity and our
nation's great genius and promise. Jazz was founded by
African-Americans, people who have had to improvise even more than other
Americans. And in that struggle, they were able to create the only art
form we Americans have ever *invented*, jazz music, out of which, nearly
every other musical form that we enjoy today has sprung. R& B, soul,
rock, hip hop, rap all have their ancestry in jazz music.

Jazz offers a prism through which so much of American history can be
seen --- it was a curious and unusually objective witness to the
Twentieth Century. It was the soundtrack that helped Americans get
through two world wars and a devastating Depression. It is about
movement and dance, communication between artist and audience, suffering
and celebration. Most of all, the story of jazz is about race and race
relations and prejudice. It is an uniquely American paradox that our
greatest art form was created by those who have had the peculiar
experience of being unfree in a free land, and during the production we
began to suspect that African-American history might actually be at the
heart of American history -- not something we should separate and
segregate into the cold month of February. Jazz musicians, Black jazz
musicians in particular, carry a complicated message to the rest of us,
a genetic memory of our great promise and our great failing, and the
music they created and then generously shared with the rest of the
world. Fittingly, both Endowments helped preserve and transmit this
important story by providing major support that made our jazz
documentary series possible.

The Endowments were a tremendous help to my work and their recent
initiatives continue to provide crucial support where it is most needed
-- in the preservation of America's cultural legacy and engagement of
Americans in their intellectual growth. I am especially impressed with
the work of both Endowments in helping teachers bring Shakespeare, jazz
and American history to life in the classroom.

NEA Chairman Dana Gioia and NEH Chairman Bruce Cole have each brought
new vigor to the missions of their respective agencies. Chairman Dana
Gioia, a poet, has developed popular programs that engage hundreds of
thousands of high school students in the recitation of poetry and the
pleasure and power of great language spoken well. The NEA is bringing
literature back into public discourse through The Big Read, introducing
hundreds of thousands of students to their first live performance of a
Shakespeare play, and giving our military veterans a voice to write
their own stories through Operation Homecoming. Their Shakespeare and
Jazz in the Schools educational toolkits have reached thousands of
teachers and millions of students.

NEH Chairman Dr. Bruce Cole, an art historian, has made the study and
understanding of American history an even greater emphasis at his
Endowment. Through the *We the People* program, the NEH has confirmed
its leadership role in encouraging greater knowledge of American history
and culture... among young people as well as their parents and teachers.
Through public programming (like my documentary films), scholarship,
education programs, state humanities councils, preservation efforts,
challenge grants, and special projects such as *Picturing America*, that
provide teachers with iconic American works of art as signposts to
American history, the Humanities Endowment has helped address one of the
greatest needs of our time \-- a deeper and richer understanding of our
shared past.

The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has said that we suffer today from
"too much pluribus and not enough unum." Few things survive today that
remind us of the Union from which so many of our personal as well as
collective blessings flow, and, in work such as my own, we are
challenged to maintain and strengthen our commitment to inclusion of all
communities who have contributed to this great nation*.* And it is hard
not to wonder, in an age when the present moment consumes and
overshadows all else -- our bright past and our dim unknown future --
what finally does endure? What exists in America today to encode and
store the genetic material of our civilization, to inspire our children
to learn the great stories of history and literature and to master and
create art? I believe the Arts and Humanities Endowments provide one
clear answer.