Council of Co-Presidents, members of Congress, distinguished guests, musicians, and fellow Americans:

Listen. Listen closely. Nod your head and swirl your hips in your seats in rhythm with the musicians spinning melodies beside me, behind me, around me. Breathe in the music that pulses through every space we inhabit. Stretch your arms wide. Touch the shoulders of the person next to you. Feel the buzz of heat from the bodies in this room, the hearts pounding together, the toes tapping in shoes, and the fingertips brushing against flesh. Turn to your neighbor. Lock eyes. Send love. Squeeze a hand. Stretch a smile. Send a kiss. As we sit together in this chamber, feel the weight and air of history, of change, of connection, of art.

Twenty years ago, we stood before you with a call. Sixteen years ago, twelve years ago, seven years ago, we stood before you with a response. And a response. And a response. Today, we stand before you with a smile. And a fist. And a bow.

Two hundred forty-seven years ago, our country's founders documented their vision for a nation grounded on principles of solidarity, collaboration, and partnership. "We the people" opened a portal to a potential wonderland of civic engagement, where every citizen's voice was equally respected and heeded. Two hundred forty-seven years ago, the United States of America trusted that all our citizens would be involved with national policies, global partnerships, and domestic welfare programs. This vision was bold, breathless, and beautiful. And it failed. We as a country were not ready. We were not ready to respect and honor the native people whose land we ravaged. We were not ready to treat every citizen equally regardless of race, gender, national origin, creed, religion, ability, or all the qualities, capacities, and fibers that make us each unique. And special. And connected. We tried, we split, we fought, we bled, we punished, we hoped, we shared, we dreamed, we struggled. And we imagined.

We covered our ears to shut out the echoes of the gunshots ricocheting from the walls of movie theaters, elementary school classrooms, airports, and shopping malls. We squeezed our eyes tightly to delete the images of half-naked, digitally altered women's and girls' bodies selling cars, vodka, burgers, insurance. We zipped our lips to stifle our screams of rage as our elected officials allowed the bitter promises of money and power to lead them to choose war, poverty, incarceration, and hunger for our fellow citizens. Blind, deaf, choked, and silenced, we survived. We survived because despite feeling frustrated and angry, we never lost hope and imagination.

We knew that the tools that could help dig us out of our messy jungle of suffering and deception were not just shovels or spreadsheets. We also needed accordions, stories, crayons, memories, tap shoes, fantasies, and typewriters. And slowly, boldly, collaboratively, we weaved and stitched and painted and sang the memories of trauma into a tapestry of hope. We merged our skills as artists with our passion as citizens and we created the US Department of Arts and Culture to train and support a corps of millions of Citizen Artists who have inspired our nation to use our powers of creativity, imagination, and expression to strengthen and impassion our country. As we said we would do twenty years ago, we sparked a movement dedicated to cultivating equity, empathy, and social change through creative action. Our goal was to create a self-perpetuating community of ideas and activities that so deeply embed themselves into our social fabric as to make the USDAC one day obsolete.

Today is that day. Today, we announce with exploding pride that we are dissolving the US Department of Arts and Culture. We have achieved our greatest mission and have successfully integrated arts and culture into every US department. Art no longer stands alone. It is everywhere.

As we stand before you on yet another precipice of change, we remind you of our journey here. Not a train from one destination to the end of the line, but a spiraling rollercoaster with twists and spins, climbs and free falls. We exit where we began, surrounded by the same trees and oceans, but dizzy with heart-thumping and hand-holding, ears ringing and cheeks flushed with reinvigorated energy. In 2013, we began training our corps of citizen artists. The intervening twenty years have sent more than one million culture troops into our military, education, justice, health, agriculture, and state departments to infuse arts-based pedagogy and theory into all their training, policies, and activities. We proudly credit their vision, leadership, and tireless work for leading the United States to abandon political party divisions, acknowledge the fierce power of collective leadership, and vote to elect a Council of Co-Presidents.

We have witnessed a resurgence of collaborations and a flood of new community-arts-business partnerships. Today, all for-purpose organizations (formerly known as non-profits) hire artists and train their employees in arts-based management theory and methods. We'd like to acknowledge the powerful work that the Culture Corps has accomplished with the Department of Health by training nursing and medical staffs in creative listening, storytelling, and arts therapies. Their work has led to a nearly 300% decline in the length of the average hospital stay. Their whole-body wellness programs have provided so much preventative care that we have witnessed a remarkable drop in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer rates since 2013. Inspired by the work that theater artist and politician Augusto Boal accomplished in Rio de Janeiro (1998), the Culture Corps has incorporated theater into town halls and courtrooms. Performing their struggles and solutions, citizens artists now regularly lead interactive, improvisational problem-solving sessions that spark the creation and implementation of new laws. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy has harnessed the full power of visual and performing arts in innovative marketing campaigns that have successfully modeled and inspired the behavioral changes necessary to reverse global warming.

Today, all children grow up immersed in creative activities and arts-based education that continues through adulthood and eldercare. Big-box stores and industrial warehouse spaces are repurposed as cultural centers. There are arts bodegas on street corners in urban, suburban, and rural communities providing art supplies and musical instruments along with kale chips, data-chargers, and cashew juice. The US government publicly articulates an annual cultural policy and massively increases investment in art, culture, and creativity, nurturing a steep rise in innovation, collaboration, and empathy. Large-scale public employment of artists sparks an imaginative renaissance. The United States has become known internationally not for our corporate mass media, but for our vibrant people-powered cultural life. All social change initiatives incorporate cultural workers. Most businesses have added artists to their rosters. They have realized that in order to increase productivity, sustainability, staff retention, and positive community engagement, they must fund and support arts partnerships and infusions. We no longer need government support to sustain them. They are part of our cultural fabric.

If you had asked what the American Dream meant in 2013, you would probably have heard stories about individual men who had "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps," going "from rags to riches." Others might refer to houses in the suburbs with white picket fences. "Success" was defined by money, power, fame, and material possessions. This morning on my way here, I asked a cluster of teenage girls on the spacerail what achieving the American Dream means to them. They erupted in excited chatter, "The American Dream is a story circle around a central fire!" "The American Dream is a neighborhood choir!" "The American Dream is a street filled with flowers and murals and very different kinds of people coming together dancing, celebrating, laughing."

Now, I feel we can finally rewrite our pledge that so inspired a generation. No longer do we need to stand with the USDAC. Today, we can finally, and with conviction, declaim:

"I, (NAME), do hereby stand with my fellow Americans in asserting that:

Access to culture is a fundamental human right.

Culture is created by all and thus should represent all.

Cultural diversity is a social good and the wellspring of free expression.

A deep investment in creativity is critical to cultivating empathy and social imagination.

Art and artists are powerful forces for accomplishing social change and strengthening social fabric.

I willingly take on the role and responsibility of citizen artist and pledge to all others affirming these values my creativity, integrity, and commitment to cultivate the public interest in art and culture and catalyze art and culture in the public interest."¹

The US Department of Arts and Culture is now irrelevant.