AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
America has been working toward a more perfect union for 250 years now. Since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the U.S. has been a living experiment in democracy. And like all countries, there have been good moments and bad. A new project aims to excavate that history with a weekly series of essays on America's presidents and first ladies. Colleen Shogan is leading the project called In Pursuit. She was the archivist of the United States until last year. Welcome to the program.
COLLEEN SHOGAN: Great to be here. Thank you.
RASCOE: What is the story of America that you hope to tell with this weekly series?
SHOGAN: I think there's a lot of twists and turns to America's story. We have many, many successes. We've also had our challenges and difficulties, our low points. And I think a lot of our essays will try to explain that in a chronological way so that we can understand as Americans how we've tried to live up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. But that's something that, of course, is - we're in pursuit of.
RASCOE: Well, you began with a splash. Former President George W. Bush, in his essay, he commends George Washington for his restraint and humility.
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GEORGE W BUSH: I have studied the corrupting nature of power and how retaining power for power's sake has infected politics for generations. Our first president could've remained all-powerful, but twice he chose not to.
RASCOE: So do you see a statement like that statement as celebrating an American value, or do you see it as a criticism of President Trump?
SHOGAN: I think it's a timeless observation because humility is important, yes, for politicians, but it's also relevant for all of us. No matter what walk we are in life, we can all take a lesson in humility.
RASCOE: President Bush in his essay about George Washington, he also did include some criticism.
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BUSH: He made tactical errors, especially early in his military career. He could be prickly and naturally irritable, in the words of Thomas Jefferson. But worst of all, he was, as were many of his generation, a lifelong slave owner who never publicly condemned the institution.
SHOGAN: You'd have to ask President Bush, you know, personally, what he - the reason why he included it. But I think, in general, why you would want to include that is that Washington was a slave owner and profited from slavery throughout his life and career, grew up with slavery. And so, you know, slavery is the great sin of the United States, and as - you know, certainly something that has impacted our racial relations since the beginning of America's inception.
RASCOE: The White House has its own project to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the country. It's turning to conservative institutions like PragerU and Hillsdale College. It's called Task Force 250. What do you make of that effort?
SHOGAN: I'm not intimately familiar with it, but I think that there's going to be a lot of different projects out there that will give Americans a lot of different opportunities to think about our nation's past and to think about our future.
RASCOE: I guess with this project, there have been some big omissions, right? - talking about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, Native American history. When you look at the history of America and this idea of what it means to celebrate America, how do you square celebration with things that don't paint the country in a good light and that show the negative sides of the country?
SHOGAN: Well, we have to talk about all of it because, as I always said, even when I was the archivist of the United States, if we don't talk about our challenges and our failures in our nation's history, we're simply not telling an accurate history of the United States. And I think the 250th anniversary can be a lot of different things. There will be times for celebration. Then there will be times for, you know, all kinds of fun events. And I encourage people to take part in those because we are very proud of our country, and there's that reflective patriotism that we all have. But there's also time for us to look honestly at our past and to take account for how far we've come in the United States. We're certainly not the same country that we were either in 1776 or 1789, but we also have further to go. The American experiment is not something that is finished at 250 years.
RASCOE: That's Colleen Shogan, CEO of the group In Pursuit. Thank you so much for talking with us.
SHOGAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DANIEL HERSKEDAL'S "THE CLIFF NEST") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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