    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [October 16, 1995]
    [Pages 1600-1606]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the University of Texas at Austin
    October 16, 1995

        Thank you. You know, when I was a boy growing up in Arkansas, I
    thought it highly--[applause]--I thought it highly unlikely that I would
    ever become President of the United States. Perhaps the only thing even
    more unlikely was that I should ever have the opportunity to be cheered
    at the University of Texas. I must say I am very grateful for both of
    them. [Laughter]
        President Berdahl, Chancellor Cunningham, Dean Olson; to the Texas
    Longhorn Band, thank you for playing ``Hail to the Chief.'' You were
    magnificent. To my longtime friend of nearly 25 years now, Bernard
    Rapoport, thank you for your statement and your inspiration and your
    life of generous giving to this great university and so many other good
    causes. All the distinguished guests in the audience--I hesitate to
    start, but I thank my friend and your fellow Texan, Henry Cisneros, for
    coming down here with me and for his magnificent work as Secretary of
    HUD. I thank your Congressman, Lloyd Doggett, and his wife, Libby, for
    flying down with me. And I'm glad to see my dear friend Congressman Jake
    Pickle here; I miss you. Your attorney general, Dan Morales; the land
    commissioner, Garry Mauro, I thank all of them for being here. Thank
    you, Luci Johnson, for being here, and please give my regards to your
    wonderful mother. I have not seen her here--there she is. And I have to
    recognize and thank your former Congresswoman and now distinguished
    professor, Barbara Jordan, for the magnificent job you did on the
    immigration issue. Thank you so much. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
        My wife told me about coming here so much, I wanted to come and see
    for myself. I also know, as all of you do, that there is no such thing
    as saying no to Liz Carpenter. [Laughter] I drug it out as long as I
    could just to hear a few more jokes. [Laughter]
        My fellow Americans, I want to begin by telling you that I am
    hopeful about America. When I looked at Nikole Bell up here introducing
    me and I shook hands with these other young students--I looked into
    their eyes; I saw the AmeriCorps button on that gentleman's shirt--I was
    reminded--as I talk about this thorny subject of race today--I was
    reminded of what Winston Churchill said about the United States when
    President Roosevelt was trying to pass the Lend-Lease Act so that we
    could help Britain in their war against Nazi Germany before we,
    ourselves, were involved. And for a good while the issue was hanging
    fire, and it was unclear whether the Congress would permit us to help
    Britain, who at that time was the only bulwark

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    against tyranny in Europe. And Winston Churchill said, ``I have great
    confidence in the judgment and the common sense of the American people
    and their leaders. They invariably do the right thing after they have
    examined every other alternative.'' [Laughter] So I say to you, let me
    begin by saying that I can see in the eyes of these students and in the
    spirit of this moment, we will do the right thing.
        In recent weeks, every one of us has been made aware of a simple
    truth: White Americans and black Americans often see the same world in
    drastically different ways, ways that go beyond and beneath the Simpson
    trial and its aftermath, which brought these perceptions so starkly into
    the open.
        The rift we see before us that is tearing at the heart of America
    exists in spite of the remarkable progress black Americans have made in
    the last generation, since Martin Luther King swept America up in his
    dream and President Johnson spoke so powerfully for the dignity of man
    and the destiny of democracy in demanding that Congress guarantee full
    voting rights to blacks. The rift between blacks and whites exists still
    in a very special way in America, in spite of the fact that we have
    become much more racially and ethnically diverse and that Hispanic-
    Americans, themselves no strangers to discrimination, are now almost 10
    percent of our national population.
        The reasons for this divide are many. Some are rooted in the awful
    history and stubborn persistence of racism. Some are rooted in the
    different ways we experience the threats of modern life to personal
    security, family values, and strong communities. Some are rooted in the
    fact that we still haven't learned to talk frankly, to listen carefully,
    and to work together across racial lines.
        Almost 30 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King took his last march with
    sanitation workers in Memphis. They marched for dignity, equality, and
    economic justice. Many carried placards that read simply, ``I am a
    man.'' The throngs of men marching in Washington today, almost all of
    them, are doing so for the same stated reason. But there is a profound
    difference between this march today and those of 30 years ago. Thirty
    years ago, the marchers were demanding the dignity and opportunity they
    were due because in the face of terrible discrimination, they had worked
    hard, raised their children, paid their taxes, obeyed the laws, and
    fought our wars.
        Well, today's march is also about pride and dignity and respect. But
    after a generation of deepening social problems that disproportionately
    impact black Americans, it is also about black men taking renewed
    responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities.
    It's about saying no to crime and drugs and violence. It's about
    standing up for atonement and reconciliation. It's about insisting that
    others do the same and offering to help them. It's about the frank
    admission that unless black men shoulder their load, no one else can
    help them or their brothers, their sisters, and their children escape
    the hard, bleak lives that too many of them still face.
        Of course, some of those in the march do have a history that is far
    from its message of atonement and reconciliation. One million men are
    right to be standing up for personal responsibility. But one million men
    do not make right one man's message of malice and division. No good
    house was ever built on a bad foundation. Nothing good ever came of
    hate. So let us pray today that all who march and all who speak will
    stand for atonement, for reconciliation, for responsibility. Let us pray
    that those who have spoken for hatred and division in the past will turn
    away from that past and give voice to the true message of those ordinary
    Americans who march. If that happens, the men and the women who are
    there with them will be marching into better lives for themselves and
    their families. And they could be marching into a better future for
    America.
        Today we face a choice. One way leads to further separation and
    bitterness and more lost futures. The other way, the path of courage and
    wisdom, leads to unity, to reconciliation, to a rich opportunity for all
    Americans to make the most of the lives God gave them. This moment in
    which the racial divide is so clearly out in the open need not be a
    setback for us. It presents us with a great opportunity, and we dare not
    let it pass us by.
        In the past, when we've had the courage to face the truth about our
    failure to live up to our own best ideals, we've grown stronger, moved
    forward, and restored proud American optimism. At such turning points,
    America moved to preserve the Union and abolish slavery, to embrace
    women's suffrage, to guarantee basic legal rights to America without
    regard to race, under the leadership of President Johnson. At each of
    these moments, we looked in the

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    national mirror and were brave enough to say, this is not who we are;
    we're better than that.
        Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a house divided against itself
    cannot stand. When divisions have threatened to bring our house down,
    somehow we have always moved together to shore it up. My fellow
    Americans, our house is the greatest democracy in all human history. And
    with all its racial and ethnic diversity, it has beaten the odds of
    human history. But we know that divisions remain, and we still have work
    to do.
        The two worlds we see now each contain both truth and distortion.
    Both black and white Americans must face this, for honesty is the only
    gateway to the many acts of reconciliation that will unite our worlds at
    last into one America.
        White America must understand and acknowledge the roots of black
    pain. It began with unequal treatment, first in law and later in fact.
    African-Americans indeed have lived too long with a justice system that
    in too many cases has been and continues to be less than just. The
    record of abuses extends from lynchings and trumped up charges to false
    arrests and police brutality. The tragedies of Emmett Till and Rodney
    King are bloody markers on the very same road. Still today, too many of
    our police officers play by the rules of the bad old days. It is beyond
    wrong when law-abiding black parents have to tell their law-abiding
    children to fear the police whose salaries are paid by their own taxes.
        And blacks are right to think something is terribly wrong when
    African-American men are many times more likely to be victims of
    homicide than any other group in this country, when there are more
    African-American men in our corrections system than in our colleges,
    when almost one in three African-American men in their twenties are
    either in jail, on parole, or otherwise under the supervision of the
    criminal justice system, nearly one in three. And that is a
    disproportionate percentage in comparison to the percentage of blacks
    who use drugs in our society. Now, I would like every white person here
    and in America to take a moment to think how he or she would feel if one
    in three white men were in similar circumstances.
        And there is still unacceptable economic disparity between blacks
    and whites. It is so fashionable to talk today about African-Americans
    as if they have been some sort of protected class. Many whites think
    blacks are getting more than their fair share in terms of jobs and
    promotions. That is not true. That is not true.
        The truth is that African-Americans still make on average about 60
    percent of what white people do, that more than half of African-American
    children live in poverty. And at the very time our young Americans need
    access to college more than ever before, black college enrollment is
    dropping in America.
        On the other hand, blacks must understand and acknowledge the roots
    of white fear in America. There is a legitimate fear of the violence
    that is too prevalent in our urban areas. And often, by experience or at
    least what people see on the news at night, violence for those white
    people too often has a black face.
        It isn't racist for a parent to pull his or her child close when
    walking through a high-crime neighborhood or to wish to stay away from
    neighborhoods where innocent children can be shot in school or standing
    at bus stops by thugs driving by with assault weapons or toting handguns
    like Old West desperadoes. It isn't racist for parents to recoil in
    disgust when they read about a national survey of gang members saying
    that two-thirds of them feel justified in shooting someone simply for
    showing them disrespect. It isn't racist for whites to say they don't
    understand why people put up with gangs on the corner or in the projects
    or with drugs being sold in the schools or in the open. It's not racist
    for whites to assert that the culture of welfare dependency, out-of-
    wedlock pregnancy, and absent fatherhood cannot be broken by social
    programs unless there is first more personal responsibility.
        The great potential for this march today, beyond the black
    community, is that whites will come to see a larger truth: that blacks
    share their fears and embrace their convictions, openly assert that
    without changes in the black community and within individuals, real
    change for our society will not come.
        This march could remind white people that most black people share
    their old-fashioned American values, for most black Americans still do
    work hard, care for their families, pay their taxes, and obey the law,
    often under circumstances which are far more difficult than those their
    white counterparts face. Imagine how you would feel if you were a young
    parent in your twenties with a young child living in a housing project,
    working somewhere for $5

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    an hour with no health insurance, passing every day people on the street
    selling drugs, making 100 times what you make. Those people are the real
    heroes of America today, and we should recognize that.
        And white people too often forget that they are not immune to the
    problems black Americans face, crime, drugs, domestic abuse, and teen
    pregnancy. They are too prevalent among whites as well, and some of
    those problems are growing faster in our white population than in our
    minority population.
        So we all have a stake in solving these common problems together. It
    is therefore wrong for white Americans to do what they have done too
    often, simply to move further away from the problems and support
    policies that will only make them worse.
        Finally, both sides seem to fear deep down inside that they'll never
    quite be able to see each other as more than enemy faces, all of whom
    carry at least a sliver of bigotry in their hearts. Differences of
    opinion rooted in different experiences are healthy, indeed essential,
    for democracies. But differences so great and so rooted in race threaten
    to divide the house Mr. Lincoln gave his life to save. As Dr. King said,
    ``We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish as
    fools.''
        Recognizing one another's real grievances is only the first step. We
    must all take responsibility for ourselves, our conduct, and our
    attitudes. America, we must clean our house of racism.
        To our white citizens, I say, I know most of you every day do your
    very best by your own lights to live a life free of discrimination.
    Nevertheless, too many destructive ideas are gaining currency in our
    midst. The taped voice of one policeman should fill you with outrage.
    And so I say, we must clean the house of white America of racism.
    Americans who are in the white majority should be proud to stand up and
    be heard denouncing the sort of racist rhetoric we heard on that tape,
    so loudly and clearly denouncing it that our black fellow citizens can
    hear us. White racism may be black people's burden, but it's white
    people's problem. We must clean our house.
        To our black citizens, I honor the presence of hundreds of thousands
    of men in Washington today committed to atonement and to personal
    responsibility and the commitment of millions of other men and women who
    are African-Americans to this cause. I call upon you to build on this
    effort, to share equally in the promise of America. But to do that, your
    house, too, must be cleaned of racism. There are too many today, white
    and black, on the left and the right, on the street corners and the
    radio waves, who seek to sow division for their own purposes. To them I
    say, no more. We must be one.
        Long before we were so diverse, our Nation's motto was E Pluribus
    Unum, out of many, we are one. We must be one, as neighbors, as fellow
    citizens, not separate camps but family, white, black, Latino, all of
    us, no matter how different, who share basic American values and are
    willing to live by them.
        When a child is gunned down on a street in the Bronx, no matter what
    our race, he is our American child. When a woman dies from a beating, no
    matter what our race or hers, she is our American sister. And every time
    drugs course through the vein of another child, it clouds the future of
    all our American children. Whether we like it or not, we are one nation,
    one family, indivisible. And for us, divorce or separation are not
    options.
        Here in 1995, on the edge of the 21st century, we dare not tolerate
    the existence of two Americas. Under my watch, I will do everything I
    can to see that as soon as possible there is only one, one America under
    the rule of law, one social contract committed not to winner-take-all
    but to giving all Americans a chance to win together, one America.
        Well, how do we get there? First, today I ask every Governor, every
    mayor, every business leader, every church leader, every civic leader,
    every union steward, every student leader, most important, every
    citizen, in every workplace and learning place and meeting place all
    across America to take personal responsibility for reaching out to
    people of different races, for taking time to sit down and talk through
    this issue, to have the courage to speak honestly and frankly, and then
    to have the discipline to listen quietly with an open mind and an open
    heart, as others do the same.
        This may seem like a simple request, but for tens of millions of
    Americans, this has never been a reality. They have never spoken, and
    they have never listened, not really, not really. I am convinced, based
    on a rich lifetime of friendships and common endeavors with people of
    different races, that the American people will find out they have a lot
    more in common than they think they do.

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        The second thing we have to do is to defend and enhance real
    opportunity. I'm not talking about opportunity for black Americans or
    opportunity for white Americans; I'm talking about opportunity for all
    Americans. Sooner or later, all our speaking, all our listening, all our
    caring has to lead to constructive action together for our words and our
    intentions to have meaning. We can do this first by truly rewarding work
    and family in Government policies, in employment policies, in community
    practices.
        We also have to realize that there are some areas of our country,
    whether in urban areas or poor rural areas like south Texas or eastern
    Arkansas, where these problems are going to be more prevalent just
    because there is no opportunity. There is only so much temptation some
    people can stand when they turn up against a brick wall day after day
    after day. And if we can spread the benefits of education and free
    enterprise to those who have been denied them too long and who are
    isolated in enclaves in this country, then we have a moral obligation to
    do it. It will be good for our country.
        Third and perhaps most important of all, we have to give every child
    in this country, and every adult who still needs it, the opportunity to
    get a good education. President Johnson understood that, and now that I
    am privileged to have this job and to look back across the whole sweep
    of American history, I can appreciate how truly historic his commitment
    to the simple idea that every child in this country ought to have an
    opportunity to get a good, safe, decent, fulfilling education was. It
    was revolutionary then, and it is revolutionary today.
        Today that matters more than ever. I'm trying to do my part. I am
    fighting hard against efforts to roll back family security, aid to
    distressed communities, and support for education. I want it to be
    easier for poor children to get off to a good start in school, not
    harder. I want it to be easier for everybody to go to college and stay
    there, not harder. I want to mend affirmative action, but I do not think
    America is at a place today where we can end it. The evidence of the
    last several weeks shows that.
        But let us remember, the people marching in Washington today are
    right about one fundamental thing: At its base, this issue of race is
    not about government or political leaders, it is about what is in the
    heart and minds and life of the American people. There will be no
    progress in the absence of real responsibility on the part of all
    Americans. Nowhere is that responsibility more important than in our
    efforts to promote public safety and preserve the rule of law.
        Law and order is the first responsibility of government. Our
    citizens must respect the law and those who enforce it. Police have a
    life-and-death responsibility never, never to abuse the power granted
    them by the people. We know, by the way, what works in fighting crime
    also happens to improve relationships between the races. What works in
    fighting crime is community policing. We have seen it working all across
    America. The crime rate is down, the murder rate is down where people
    relate to each other across the lines of police and community in an
    open, honest, respectful, supportive way. We can lower crime and raise
    the state of race relations in America if we will remember this simple
    truth.
        But if this is going to work, police departments have to be fair and
    engaged with, not estranged from, their communities. I am committed to
    making this kind of community policing a reality all across our country.
    But you must be committed to making it a reality in your communities. We
    have to root out the remnants of racism in our police departments. We've
    got to get it out of our entire criminal justice system. But just as the
    police have a sacred duty to protect the community fairly, all of our
    citizens have a sacred responsibility to respect the police, to teach
    our young people to respect them, and then to support them and work with
    them so that they can succeed in making us safer.
        Let's not forget, most police officers of whatever race are honest
    people who love the law and put their lives on the lines so that the
    citizens they're protecting can lead decent, secure lives and so that
    their children can grow up to do the same.
        Finally, I want to say, on the day of this march, a moment about a
    crucial area of responsibility, the responsibility of fatherhood. The
    single biggest social problem in our society may be the growing absence
    of fathers from their children's homes, because it contributes to so
    many other social problems. One child in four grows up in a fatherless
    home. Without a father to help guide, without a father to care, without
    a father to teach boys to be men and to teach girls to expect respect
    from men, it's harder.

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    There are a lot of mothers out there doing a magnificent job alone, a
    magnificent job alone, but it is harder. It is harder. This, of course,
    is not a black problem or a Latino problem or a white problem, it is an
    American problem. But it aggravates the conditions of the racial divide.
        I know from my own life it is harder, because my own father died
    before I was born, and my stepfather's battle with alcohol kept him from
    being the father he might have been. But for all fathers, parenting is
    not easy, and every parent makes mistakes. I know that, too, from my own
    experience. The point is that we need people to be there for their
    children day after day. Building a family is the hardest job a man can
    do, but it's also the most important.
        For those who are neglecting their children, I say it is not too
    late; your children still need you. To those who only send money in the
    form of child support, I say keep sending the checks; your kids count on
    them, and we'll catch you and enforce the law if you stop. But the
    message of this march today--one message is that your money is no
    replacement for your guiding, your caring, your loving the children you
    brought into this world.
        We can only build strong families when men and women respect each
    other, when they have partnerships, when men are as involved in the
    homeplace as women have become involved in the workplace. It means,
    among other things, that we must keep working until we end domestic
    violence against women and children. I hope those men in Washington
    today pledge among other things to never, never raise their hand in
    violence against a woman.
        So today, my fellow Americans, I honor the black men marching in
    Washington to demonstrate their commitment to themselves, their
    families, and their communities. I honor the millions of men and women
    in America, the vast majority of every color, who without fanfare or
    recognition do what it takes to be good fathers and good mothers, good
    workers and good citizens. They all deserve the thanks of America.
        But when we leave here today, what are you going to do? What are you
    going to do? Let all of us who want to stand up against racism do our
    part to roll back the divide. Begin by seeking out people in the
    workplace, the classroom, the community, the neighborhood across town,
    the places of worship to actually sit down and have those honest
    conversations I talked about, conversations where we speak openly and
    listen and understand how others view this world of ours.
        Make no mistake about it, we can bridge this great divide. This is,
    after all, a very great country. And we have become great by what we
    have overcome. We have the world's strongest economy, and it's on the
    move. But we've really lasted because we have understood that our
    success could never be measured solely by the size of our gross national
    product.
        I believe the march in Washington today spawned such an outpouring
    because it is a reflection of something deeper and stronger that is
    running throughout our American community. I believe that in millions
    and millions of different ways, our entire country is reasserting our
    commitment to the bedrock values that made our country great and that
    make life worth living.
        The great divides of the past called for and were addressed by legal
    and legislative changes. They were addressed by leaders like Lyndon
    Johnson, who passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And
    to be sure, this great divide requires a public response by
    democratically elected leaders. But today, we are really dealing, and we
    know it, with problems that grow in large measure out of the way all of
    us look at the world with our minds and the way we feel about the world
    with our hearts.
        And therefore, while leaders and legislation may be important, this
    is work that has to be done by every single one of you. And this is the
    ultimate test of our democracy, for today the house divided exists
    largely in the minds and hearts of the American people. And it must be
    united there, in the minds and hearts of our people.
        Yes, there are some who would poison our progress by selling short
    the great character of our people and our enormous capacity to change
    and grow. But they will not win the day; we will win the day. With your
    help, with your help, that day will come a lot sooner. I will do my
    part, but you, my fellow citizens, must do yours.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:34 a.m. at the Frank Erwin Center, as
    part of the Liz Sutherland Carpenter Distinguished Lectureship in the
    Humanities and Sciences. In his remarks, he referred to Robert Berdahl,
    president, William

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    Cunningham, chancellor, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, dean, college of liberal
    arts, Bernard Rapoport, chairman, board of regents, and Nikole Bell,
    student, University of Texas at Austin. A portion of these remarks could
    not be verified because the tape was incomplete.