Bill Clinton: “On October 16, our Nation lost one of its finest defenders of freedom, Richard Penn Kemble. The central theme of Penn…”

“On October 16, our Nation lost one of its finest defenders of freedom, Richard Penn Kemble. The central theme of Penn Kemble's activist youth and professional life was the promotion and strengthening of democracy. In the 1970s, he served on the Senate staff of my predecessor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and in the Clinton administration, he served as Deputy and Acting Director of the United States Information Agency, USIA. At USIA, Penn Kemble initiated Civitas, a multinational educational program. Under his leadership, USIA made educational reform, to strengthen both citizenship and the culture of democracy, one of its central interests. Through its partnership with the Center for Civic Education, it nurtured a worldwide civic education movement that began at its first meeting in Prague in June of 1995. I had the honor of addressing the third annual Civitas World Conference in 1999 in Palermo, Italy, which brought together political leaders and more than 350 civic educators from around the world. This international civic education movement continues today in no small measure because of the important work Penn Kemble began in 1995. He knew that even though the institutional machinery of democracy might be in place, it could not be sustained unless a culture of democracy was to take root. He knew that people could only become citizens when they understood and exercised the rights and responsibilities of self- government.…”