THE WHITE HOUSE

                       Office of the Press Secretary
                          (Skaneateles, New York)

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES HAROLD HOLZER AND JAMES HORTON TO THE ABRAHAM

LINCOLN BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION

The President announced today his intent to appoint Harold Holzer and James Oliver Horton as members of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

Mr. Harold Holzer, of Rye, New York, is currently Vice President for Communications at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. He has authored, co-authored and edited 18 books including The Lincoln Image, The Confederate Image, Lincoln on Democracy (co-authored with Mario Cuomo) The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln as I Knew Him, Lincoln Seen and Heard and Witness to War: The Civil War. Additionally, he is a frequent guest on television, appearing on PBS documentaries and A&E biographies of Lincoln and the C-Span recreation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Mr. Holzer serves as Vice Chairman of the Lincoln Forum and as a Trustee of the New York Archives Preservation Trust. He received a BA degree from City University of New York.

Dr. James Oliver Horton, of Reston, Virginia, is the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University and Director of the African American Communities Project at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. In 1996 he received The Carnegie Foundation, CASE Professor of the Year Award for the District of Columbia. Recently, he appeared in the PBS series "Africans in America" and the PBS film "John Brown's Holy War." He also appears weekly in the History Channel's "History Center," provided historical commentary on the Civil War for the DVD version of the movie Glory, and serves as historical advisor to several museums in the United States and Europe. Among his books are In Hope of Liberty, Free People of Color, Black Bostonians, A History of the African American People, and the forthcoming Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America. In 1999, he served as historical expert for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Save America's Treasures" bus tour. Dr. Horton received his undergraduate degree from The State University of New York at Buffalo and his Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University.

Legislation establishing Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission was enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President for the purpose of studying activities that may be carried out by the Federal Government to honor Abraham Lincoln on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009.

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