If you haven’t seen it yet, check
out the video recitation of Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address put together by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken
Burns and which features Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter.
Burns, who produced an epic
documentary about the Civil War more than two decades ago, combined snippets of
ex-presidents, lawmakers and celebrities reading Lincoln’s most famous speech.
The participants range from Steven Colbert to Steven Spielberg to Uma Thurman.
The 150th anniversary
of the address, probably the most iconic two minutes of American oratory in
history, is today and Burns is encouraging the public to make video
recordings of themselves reciting Lincoln’s words.
As he works on a film about the
speech, Burns is marking the speech from seven score and 10 years ago by urging
Americans to, at a minimum, memorize those immortal words.
