    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [September 13, 1997]
    [Pages 1160-1162]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Gala
    September 13, 1997

        Thank you. Thank you very much. Congresswoman Waters, every time you
    get up to speak I'm always all ears. When you introduce me, I'm
    certainly all ears. I'm never quite sure what you're going to say--
    [laughter]--but I'm absolutely sure you will say what you think. Maxine
    Waters is my kind of public official. I've been to her district several
    times with her. She knows the people in the street, the people on the
    corners. She cares about the people that other people forget. Her
    district is the first one where I met young men who had been in gangs
    who were walking the streets with her to save the lives of other young
    people. That's the kind of thing she's done, and America owes Maxine
    Waters a debt of gratitude, and I thank her.
        I want to congratulate Congressman Clyburn and LeBaron Taylor and
    all of you who are responsible for this event tonight. I was glad to be
    here, too, with Congressman Gephardt and with all the distinguished
    members of the audience. I see Kweisi Mfume there and Mrs. King and
    Mayor Barry, Dr. Height. Reverend Jackson, I'm always glad to see you.
    And I think I speak for many of us here when we say that you and your
    family and your mother are in our prayers, sir. God bless you. And thank
    you for the magnificent job you did leading, along with Secretary
    Slater, the American delegation to the African economic summit in
    Zimbabwe.
        Let me also congratulate the award winners: Major Owens and Eva
    Clayton, Bill Lucy and Danny Bakewell, Laura Murphy and William Brooks,
    Myrlie Evers-Williams, Coretta Scott King, the late Dr. Betty Shabazz,
    and my good

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    friend, the chairman of our racial reconciliation advisory board, Dr.
    John Hope Franklin.
        And finally, let me say one other word of introduction. One of your
    members is not here tonight because he had to go home to dedicate his
    new cathedral. But I want to wish Congressman Floyd Flake well as he
    leaves the United States Congress and goes home to his mission, where
    his heart is. Floyd Flake, in his church, has helped to start 11
    businesses, employing hundreds of people in inner-city neighborhoods who
    would not have jobs otherwise. That's the sort of partnership I'd like
    to see us make with African-American churches all across the United
    States of America, so everybody who wants a job has one. So, even though
    he's going home, I want him to be a model that all of us here in
    Washington can continue to follow.
        I want to say one serious thing. If you don't remember anything else
    tonight, remember this one sentence: I am profoundly grateful to the
    Congressional Black Caucus for making a dream of a lifetime come true; I
    am the opening act for James Brown. [Laughter] In one of James Brown's
    songs he says, ``I don't want nobody to give me nothing. Just open up
    the door. I'll get it myself.'' I think that's the motto of the CBC. And
    for 4\1/2\ years, we've been working together to open up those doors.
        Today, we see the results: unemployment below 5 percent, lowest
    African-American unemployment in 24 years; 13 million new jobs; family
    incomes up, African-American family income is up $3,000 in 3 years; the
    lowest poverty rate among African-Americans ever recorded; violent crime
    down 5 years in a row; record drops in welfare. That is the progress
    that I could not have possibly made if it had not been for the support
    of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I thank you very much for that.
        And let me say that progress should spur us on, for there is still
    too much poverty, still too much lack of economic and educational
    opportunity. There is still too much discrimination. There is too much
    to do. And I come here today to say that, down to the last day of my
    Presidency, I will be there with you, working with you, fighting for a
    tomorrow that we can all share together.
        I also want to thank the members of my administration who are here.
    Many have been noticed, but I'd like to say a special word of thanks to
    all the African-Americans who work in the White House. And to Bob Nash,
    Goody Marshall, Ben Johnson, Minyon Moore, Terry Edmonds, Ann Walker,
    Tracey Thornton, and Andy Blocker--I know they're here--there may be
    more. But I want to thank them for helping me to be a better President.
        I also want to thank the CBC for its strong support of the man who
    will be the next Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lee.
    He's here tonight, and I thank you for sticking by him. For much of his
    career, Bill Lee's been a civil rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal
    Defense Fund. He was not born into a position of leadership. Instead,
    he's a Chinese-American who worked his way out of poverty in Harlem to
    become a national leader in the fight for social justice. We need your
    support to ensure his confirmation. He will do a magnificent job.
        I also want to ask your support for the man whom I nominated this
    week to be the next Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary of Health,
    Dr. David Satcher.
        Finally, let me say, as the Congress comes back after its recess, I
    ask for your support to get from this Congress the money that was
    promised for the priorities we fought so hard for in the balanced budget
    agreement: the largest increase in aid to education since 1965, the
    biggest increase opening the doors to college for all--and aid to
    college--since 1945, and the biggest increase in health care for poor
    people and children since 1965. Now we've got to make good on the
    promises of that agreement, and I need your help to do that.
        Finally, let me say that as we approach a new millennium, we must
    decide that we can never be what we ought to be unless we get there
    together. I was, just the other day, at American University in
    Washington. There are students from 140 different national and ethnic
    groups at American University. We don't have time for, or room for,
    discrimination. And we can no longer ignore the unfinished business of
    our past. We cannot continue to grow economically as long as there's a
    single soul in this country who needs a good quality education who can't
    get it and who is denied access to a job for which he or she is plainly
    qualified. We cannot do that.
        And we have to decide, as a country, that we can't afford our past
    baggage or our present blinders. We've got to embrace a future in which
    we're all going forward together. Look around this room tonight. You are
    the future of America. Your children and grandchildren are

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    the future of America. And we are going to have the most exciting future
    that this country has ever had if we just make up our mind to make sure
    everybody has a chance to walk through that door together.
        I ask your support for Dr. John Hope Franklin and Judy Winston. I
    thank you for the national townhall meeting on race relations in the new
    millennium that you held. I ask you to remember this: Everybody who gets
    to serve in Congress, certainly someone who gets to serve as President,
    has had a chance--all those folks--we've had our chance to live our
    dreams, but there's still a lot of people our age that were denied that
    chance. There are huge numbers of people our parents' age who never had
    that chance. We should promise that there will be no one our children's
    age who will be denied that chance to walk through the door of their
    dreams. That is our mission, and I promise to pursue it with you hand in
    hand until my last day as your President.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. at Union Station. In his remarks, he
    referred to LeBaron Taylor, chair, Congressional Black Caucus
    Foundation; Kweisi Mfume, president, and Myrlie Evers-Williams, chair,
    board of directors, NAACP; Coretta Scott King, founder, Martin Luther
    King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc.; Mayor Marion S. Barry,
    Jr., of Washington, DC; Dorothy Height, president and chief executive
    officer, National Council of Negro Women; civil rights leader Jesse
    Jackson; William Lucy, international secretary and treasurer, American
    Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Danny J. Bakewell,
    chair, The Bakewell Company; Laura W. Murphy, director, American Civil
    Liberties Union, Washington, DC, office; William Brooks, vice president
    of corporate affairs, General Motors; the late Betty Shabazz, director,
    institutional advancement and public relations, Medgar Evers College,
    City University of New York; entertainer James Brown, who performed at
    the gala; and John Hope Franklin, Chair, and Judith A. Winston,
    Executive Director, President's Advisory Board on Race.