    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [September 14, 1996]
    [Pages 1570-1574]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1570]]

    Remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Dinner
    September 14, 1996

        Thank you, Congressman Payne. He was up here talking about me and
    our administration and laying it on so thick, it sounded so good I
    wasn't quite sure who he was talking about. [Laughter] And Alexis
    Herman, sitting over there with me--and he got down to the end, she
    said, ``He's talking about you. This is your introduction. Stand up;
    stand up.'' [Laughter] Thank you so very much.
        Thank you, Congressman Don Payne, for your leadership of the
    Congressional Black Caucus and for your passion for the people of
    America and indeed for people around the world. Thank you, Congressman
    Bill Jefferson, for chairing this dinner for 2 years in a row.
    [Applause] That is worth more than applause, folks. Thank you for being
    my friend for so long and way back in the beginning when only you and my
    mother thought I could be elected President. [Laughter]
        Thank you, LeBaron Taylor, for chairing the Congressional Black
    Caucus Foundation. To all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus,
    Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, honored guests. I'd also like to recognize
    and thank for their service the retiring members of the CBC: Kweisi
    Mfume, Cardiss Collins, Cleo Fields, Barbara Rose Collins, and my
    neighbor Harold Ford from Tennessee. Please give them all a big hand.
    They have served our country well. [Applause]
        We have a lot of members of our administration here tonight: our
    Energy Secretary, Hazel O'Leary; the Commerce Secretary, Mickey Kantor;
    Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick--thank you for sticking up for
    the civil rights of all Americans, Deval; Federal Highway Administrator
    Rodney Slater; Assistant to the President for appointments Bob Nash. If
    you get one, credit me; if you don't, blame him. [Laughter]
        I'm glad to see my friend Mayor Dinkins here tonight. The Director
    of the office of drug policy control in the White House, General Barry
    McCaffrey; former deputy chairman of the African National Congress
    Walter Sisilu is here. Thank you, Walter. And the future Speaker of the
    House of Representatives is here, Dick Gephardt, and we're glad to see
    him.
        This is my fourth CBC dinner. I enjoy each one better than the last.
    I thank all of you for coming up here to shake my hand, and I apologize
    for everyone I didn't get to see.
        Let me begin by recognizing your outstanding awardees tonight. Thank
    you, first of all, for honoring Alma Brown and for what you have done
    also to honor the memory of Ron Brown, who was clearly the greatest
    Commerce Secretary in my lifetime, perhaps in the history of the United
    States. I congratulate Mary Frances Berry, Ingrid Saunders Jones, Toni
    Fay, Elaine Jones, Congressman John Conyers, Congressman Donald Payne,
    LeBaron Taylor, Wade Henderson, and my good friend Andy Young. All of
    you in your own way have moved our country toward greater justice,
    equality, and opportunity. Not only the members of this foundation and
    the people at this dinner but all Americans are in your debt, and we
    congratulate you.
        Ladies and gentlemen, last Monday I had the privilege of awarding
    the highest honor our Nation can bestow on any citizen, the Medal of
    Freedom. One of the honorees, John Johnson, is clearly a legend in the
    African-American community, a man who started with nothing in my home
    State, moved to Illinois, and made a pretty good career for himself. I
    enjoyed seeing him there, and I was glad to honor him.
        But unfortunately, because of Hurricane Fran, one awardee did not
    make it to the White House to receive her award in person. So earlier
    this evening, in a ceremony in the Oval Office, I presented the
    Congressional Medal of Freedom to a woman whose quiet dignity ignited
    the most significant social movement in the history of the United
    States, Rosa Parks. At this time I'd like to ask Congressman Bill
    Jefferson and Congressman Don Payne to escort Rosa Parks to the stage so
    that we can present her to you on this great night of her recognition.
        I would like to read the citation which I presented to Rosa just a
    couple of hours ago, along with this magnificent medal. Please be
    seated. It says, ``On December 1, 1955, going home from work, Rosa Parks
    boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and with one modest act of
    defiance, changed the course of history. By refusing to give up her
    seat, she sparked the

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    Montgomery bus boycott and helped launch the civil rights movement. In
    the years since, she has remained committed to the cause of freedom,
    speaking out against injustice here and abroad. Called the `first lady
    of civil rights,' Rosa Parks has demonstrated, in the words of Robert
    Kennedy, that each time a person strikes out against injustice, she
    sends forth the tiny ripple of hope, which, crossing millions of others,
    can sweep down the walls of oppression.'' Presented at the White House
    in Washington, September 9, 1996, to you, Rosa Parks. Thank you, and God
    bless you.
        Even one of the photographers said, ``You're lovely, Ms. Parks.''
    [Laughter] You guys never say anything like that to me. [Laughter]
        Ladies and gentlemen, in the last couple of weeks, as you may have
    noticed, I have been out in the country meeting with our fellow
    Americans. I took a train to the convention in Chicago. And by the way,
    to all of you who are here from Chicago, thank you for a magnificent
    convention, for all you did.
        We started in West Virginia and went into Kentucky, all through
    Ohio, through Michigan, ending up in Indiana. Then afterward, Hillary
    and I and Al and Tipper Gore took a bus trip from Missouri back into
    southern Illinois, across into Kentucky, down through Tennessee. And I
    went up to Wisconsin for Labor Day. I have just been in Arizona and
    California.
        Everywhere I go the crowds are large and enthusiastic, full of hope
    and conviction. It is so different from 4 years ago when we had high
    unemployment, the slowest job growth since the Depression, stagnant
    wages, rising crime, a country that was becoming even more cynical about
    the political system, with rising division. I said then that I wanted to
    create a country in which we had opportunity for all, responsibility
    from all, and a community that includes all Americans. I said that I
    thought that Washington had become too caught up in the politics of who
    is to blame and we'd forgotten that what the main purpose of our work
    here, which is not to say who is to blame but to ask what are we going
    to do about it?
        Thanks to a lot of the people who are in this room, we have been
    trying to do something about it for 4 years now. And after 4 years, as
    Don Payne said, we've got 10\1/2\ million new jobs, 4\1/2\ million new
    homeowners, a record number of new small businesses, including in every
    year record numbers of new businesses owned by women and minorities. We
    have for the first time since before the Civil War cut the deficit in
    each one of the 4 years of my Presidency. And we did it without gutting
    Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, and our commitment to
    the proposition that everybody in this country is entitled to be treated
    fairly and justly.
        Last year the African-American unemployment rate was in single
    digits for the first time in two decades. Crime has gone down for 4
    years in a row. Twelve million Americans can take some time off when
    their babies are born or when their parents are sick without losing
    their jobs because of the family and medical leave law. Fifteen million
    American families got a tax cut to stay off welfare because they were
    working hard with children under the earned-income tax increase that was
    passed by the Members of Congress in this room today.
        Forty million Americans have had their pensions protected. We shut
    down more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than were shut down in the 12
    years before. Fifty million Americans are breathing cleaner air. We have
    standards for safer food. We've increased the immunization of children.
    We've increased the number of children with Head Start. Our health care
    reform--the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill--now says to 25 million Americans you
    can't lose your health insurance anymore just because somebody in your
    family got sick; that's what insurance is for.
        Even though I was roundly criticized for it in the most amazing
    quarters to me, in the so-called progressive quarters of this community
    when I became President, saying that I wanted to prove we could have
    diversity and excellence and that I thought we had an obligation to try
    to construct a Government that would look like America, could relate to
    America, and could work with America, I think it's worked out pretty
    well. Forty-two African-Americans have been nominated to the Federal
    court since I became President. We've nominated more women and
    minorities to the Federal bench by far than any President in history,
    and they have the highest ratings collectively from the American Bar
    Association of any nominees in history. Don't let anybody tell you you
    can't have excellence and diversity. It is not true.
        I'm grateful for the service of people like Hazel O'Leary, Jesse
    Brown, Frank Raines, our new Director of the Office of Management and

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    Budget, the first African-American ever to hold that position. I'm
    grateful for those who went before them in our Cabinet, of course Ron
    Brown but also Lee Brown and Mike Espy. I'm grateful for the difference
    that people like Deval Patrick and Jim Joseph and Rodney Slater make.
    I'm grateful that for the first time ever there are three top assistants
    to the President in the White House who are African-American, Alexis
    Herman, Maggie Williams, and Bob Nash.
        I'm proud to announce tonight that the Clinton/Gore campaign has
    appointed to serve as honorary campaign chairs Alma Brown and
    Congressman John Lewis, along with Terry McAuliffe; Senator David Pryor;
    Governor Roy Romer; the former Governor of Texas, Ann Richards; and
    Linda Chavez-Thompson. They will lead our effort to spread the message
    and organize our reelection efforts around the country. Thank you, John,
    and thank you, Alma.
        Now, that is a pretty good start. I guess I should also mention what
    Don Payne said, that we had to say no to some things we couldn't just
    say yes to. We said no to the attempts to balance the budget by raising
    taxes on poor working people, raiding workers' pension funds, breaking
    our commitments to education, breaking our commitment to poor little
    children, seniors in nursing homes, families with disabilities by
    essentially ending Medicaid's guarantee; no to the effort to create a
    two-tier system of Medicare which would have hurt the oldest and the
    poorest and the sickest of our seniors; no to the attempts to undermine
    25 years of bipartisan support for environmental protection.
        But that is not enough. We have to do more. We have come a long way,
    if you look at where we are now compared to where we were 4 years ago.
    Then wages were dropping; now they're rising. There are lots of things
    that are better. But every one of you knows that we are not yet prepared
    for the enormous transition to the 21st century that we're all facing.
        And we will not be prepared until we can honestly say with a clear
    head and a clear conscience that every single person in this country who
    is willing to work for it can achieve the American dream. Until we can
    say that, until we can say, ``We know we're still going to be the
    strongest force for peace, freedom, and prosperity in the world,'' until
    we can say, ``And we know that our American community is not going to go
    the way of all these other countries where people spend all their time
    fighting each other because of their racial, their ethnic, their
    religious, their tribal differences--in this country, all you've got to
    do is believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the
    Declaration of Independence and show up. And we're for you, you're a
    part of our America, and you're walking on our bridge into the 21st
    century,'' until we can say that, we have work to do.
        So I ask you to support our efforts to balance the budget and keep
    the economy growing and keep those interest rates down but to do it in a
    way that continues to invest in the people and the places that still
    don't fully participate in the promise of America. And I ask you to
    support a tax cut, but it ought to be the right kind, focused on
    childrearing and education and health care and buying that first home.
    And it ought to be paid for. And people like me who don't need it
    shouldn't get it, blow up the deficit, and turn right around and go back
    to the past and what we did before, which caused our wreckage in the
    economy and drove the unemployment rate up and left too many of our
    people behind. So I want you to help me to build the right kind of
    bridge to that 21st century.
        I want to build a bridge where every 8-year-old can read a book on
    his or her own, where every 12-year-old in every classroom in America
    can log in on the Internet. And for the first time, I want the kids in
    the poorest urban classroom and the most isolated rural classrooms to
    have the same educational opportunity at the same level of quality in
    the same time as the children in the richest classes in America can. And
    we will do it in the next 4 years if we can build the right bridge to
    the 21st century.
        I want you to help me build a bridge where we make 2 years of
    college just as universal in 4 years from now as a high school education
    is today. Now, that's a tax cut worth giving. Give people a tax cut for
    the cost of community college tuition. Let them have those 2 years of
    education. We will see the incomes go up. We will see people getting
    good jobs. And it will make a difference if we build the right kind of
    bridge to the 21st century. And I hope you'll help me do that.
        I also want you to help me in this election period to remind America
    that for all of our 10\1/2\ million new jobs, there are still people in
    places that have been left behind. I want you to remind America that you
    can't require

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    people on welfare to go to work unless they have work.
        I want you to help me to spark a vast new round of investments in
    our isolated inner-city areas which have been left behind, help me give
    the mayors and the others the power to create those jobs and create
    those opportunities by cleaning up the environment, creating investment
    incentives, and putting people to work. We cannot ever forget that there
    are still too many Americans who could no more come to this dinner than
    a man in the Moon because they're still looking for a job and they need
    one tomorrow, and we need to do our best to make sure that they have
    their part of 21st century America as well.
        Let me just say, for those of you who don't think we can do that,
    look at what's been done in the empowerment zones that have been
    created. Look at what's happened in Detroit where, when they became one
    of our empowerment zone cities, they raised $2 billion in private
    investment to go with our tax incentives and cash grants, and the
    unemployment rate in 3 years in Detroit--Detroit, a city I used to hear
    was gone--has dropped from 8\1/2\ percent to less than 4 percent in
    Detroit, Michigan.
        We can do this, folks. We can turn this around if you are committed
    and I am committed and, I might say, if we get the kind of Congress that
    will support the kind of policies that will enable us to move this
    country forward.
        And let me say one last thing. I just was with a group of people
    right before I came over here--this is an interesting story--I was with
    a small group of Americans who are from India. And it's very
    interesting, of all the groups in America--they're relatively small,
    only a half a million of them, but they have the highest average
    educational attainment, the highest average income, and the highest
    average incidence of two-parent families of any group of Americans,
    including WASP's like me. But they were supporting what we were trying
    to do, and they were glad I was coming here to be with you, because they
    understand that we have to build a bridge we can all walk across. And
    they understand, unlike some, that in order for them to be really
    successful, it does take a village where we all work together to lift
    all of our children up and give all of our kids a better opportunity.
        And that's the last thing I would like to say to you. Yes, I refused
    to end affirmative action, even though it was a popular thing at the
    moment. I think the popularity has sort of faded now because the few
    incidents of things that didn't work didn't prove that we should throw
    away something that had plainly worked overwhelmingly for so many people
    over the last 25 years and because there is still evidence that we have
    a ways to go.
        I feel the same way about any form of discrimination. And I think if
    we're going to stay on the right track we need to make sure we have less
    discrimination, not more of it.
        Just imagine what the future is going to be like. Ten years from now
    those of you who are eating here tonight have children who will be doing
    jobs that have not been invented yet. Just 10 years from now some of our
    children will be doing jobs that have not been imagined yet. Your
    Government is now doing a research project with IBM to build a
    supercomputer that will do more calculations in one second than you can
    do tonight if you go home and pick up a hand-held calculator in--listen
    to this--30,000 years. That is how fast things are changing. That is the
    magnitude of change we are facing.
        And yet there is no nation in the world so well-positioned for the
    21st century as the United States, in no small measure because of you
    and because of the hard, often bitter lessons we have learned in coming
    to grips with the problems rooted in the division of the races from the
    beginning of our country. Why? Because now we are the most diverse big
    country in the world. And if we can maintain our commitment to staying
    on the cutting edge of change and making sure everybody gets a chance to
    go there, no one will do as well as American children will in the 21st
    century if we can just remember that we are blessed by our diversity
    just as much as other countries have been cursed by theirs.
        Today the world is looking at the elections in Bosnia, the first
    halting step to moving from the absence of war--which is what they have
    had since we went in there--to the beginning of peace again. But how
    tragic it is that that little country, where the Muslims and Croats and
    the Serbs are actually biologically indistinguishable and happen to be
    in separate groups because of the developments of history--how sad it is
    that in that little country, for 4 years, after decades of getting
    along, they just set on each other and started killing each other, even
    killing the children. Why? Because the darker

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    side of human nature was put on a pedestal. Because they were told the
    most important thing about them is that they weren't the other guys.
        And you look around the world and see where all that's happening.
    Now we're worried about Burundi breaking out again and having what
    happened in Rwanda happen in Burundi. Why? Because the Hutus and the
    Tutsis think the most important thing about them is they're not the
    other guy.
        I went to Ireland a year ago, and the streets were lined with the
    Catholics and Protestants, the young children cheering and yelling
    because they didn't want any more war over there. But the grownups
    didn't have as much sense as the kids did. And they started fighting
    again over things that happened 300, 400, 500, 600 years ago, telling
    the most important thing about them was they weren't Catholic or they
    weren't Protestant.
        How long did South Africa suffer for the same reason? And we have to
    remember--that's why I act so strongly when I see things like the church
    burnings or synagogues or Islamic centers being defaced--any of this is
    wrong. We can never define ourselves as Americans by saying we are so
    good because we are not the other guy. The other guys are us, too. We
    are all Americans.
        And I saw where one of our friends in the other party the other day
    was saying, ``Boy, we really need to jump on this affirmative action out
    in California; we can take the President down on this. This is one of
    those wedge issues.'' Well, let me tell you something, folks, those
    wedge issues nearly did us in. We have had about all the wedge issues we
    need. And I'd like them to take their wedges and go someplace else and
    let those of us who believe in unity get on with the business of making
    America a great place for every American to live in. And I want you to
    help me build that kind of bridge to the 21st century.
        Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:34 p.m. at the Washington Convention
    Center. In his remarks, he referred to Alexis M. Herman, Assistant to
    the President and Director of Public Liaison; David Dinkins, former New
    York City mayor; and Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado.