[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

[[Page 1162]]

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.